Moscow and Belgrade are coordinating the visit of Serbia’s First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Ivica Dačić to Russia, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in an online conference on June 30.

As reported by Russian news agency TASS, Lavrov stated that the visit was being arranged because the visit of the Russian delegation to Serbia in 2022 was “prevented”, and he blamed the West for it.

“Indeed, the West prevented this trip simply by pressuring Serbia’s neighboring countries not to allow our planes to pass,” Lavrov emphasized.

He mentioned that they were working out specific dates with the Serbian side.

“We have agreed with Ivica Dačić, my good old friend, that in this situation, he will come to the Russian Federation. Now we have agreed on several specific dates,” said the Russian Foreign Minister.

Lavrov did not rule out the possibility that his words could provoke “another unreasonable demand from the West for Ivica not to come to the Russian Federation”.

“But in any case, we have such an agreement with him,” added Lavrov.

In this context, the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs emphasized that contacts between Russia and Serbia are held regularly.

“We are very grateful to President [Aleksandar Vučić] and the Prime Minister of Serbia [Ana Brnabić], as well as the ministers of the Serbian Government, who are always open to contacts with our ambassador. They [the contacts] are very useful, and we always have the opportunity to communicate by phone. And I am looking forward to Ivica Dačić’s visit whenever it is convenient for him,” said Lavrov.

Lavrov’s planned two-day visit to Belgrade was scheduled for June 2022 but did not take place as Bulgaria, North Macedonia, and Montenegro refused to provide an air corridor for the Russian minister’s plane.

The head of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the decision of several European countries not to allow the passage of his plane “unprecedented and unimaginable”.

The visit was organized several months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which resulted in the West imposing sanctions on Russia.

Sergey Lavrov, along with Russian President Vladimir Putin, is on the sanctions list of many Western countries. The only European countries they can travel to are Belarus, Moldova, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Serbia is one of the few European countries that has not implemented these sanctions.