Tehran, IRNA- Aleksandar Vucic, President of the Republic of Serbia has warned about the potential US sanctions on his country over its stake in the Russian state-owned company Gazprom.
I expect that the United States will soon impose sanctions on the Serbian Oil Company, in which Gazprom holds the majority of the shares, Vucic said during an interview with the Serbian National Television on Sunday.
Stating that Gazprom currently owns a little over 56 percent of the shares of the Serbian oil company, he said that it remains unclear about the imposition of sanctions by the United States at the moment or whether the problem will be solved if Gazprom's ownership percentage in the Serbian oil company is reduced to 40 percent.
Vucic had previously said that Jose Fernandez, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy and the Environment, had informed him about Washington’s direct sanctions against the Serbian oil company.
Gazprom owns 56.15 percent of the shares of the Serbian oil company, while only 29.87 percent of the shares belong to the country.
Since 2014, the United States and the European Union have targeted Russia’s energy sector with increasingly significant coercive economic measures to restrict one of the Kremlin’s largest revenue sources.
The West’s anti-Russia sanctions have intensified since Moscow’s reintegration of the Crimean peninsula following a referendum there as well as over the country’s special military operation against Ukraine in 2022.
In the Balkans, Serbia remains on the US hit list as the country has maintained its cooperation with Russia due to cultural similarities and mutual aversion toward Euro-Atlantic integration.
Despite the promise of greater prosperity within the EU, many fear that Serbia is moving closer to the Kremlin again after President Vucia announced last year that he had purchased an anti-drone system, combat vehicles and infantry equipment from Russia.
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