Prime Minister of the Russian Federation in a one-day visit to Serbia

President of the Republic of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić and Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev attended today the capability review of the Serbian Armed Forces "Freedom 2019" on the occasion of marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Belgrade in the Second World War. 

 

 

Upon the end of the review at the Batajnica airfield "Colonel-Pilot Milenko Pavlović", President Vučić congratulated the day of Belgrade liberation from fascists to the troops of the Serbian Army, the citizens and guests and assessed the review with "very good", adding that Serbia will know how to preserve its sky, country and people by itself.  

President Vučić thanked all the officers, non-commissioned officers and soldiers for all they do for their country.  

 

 

"Dear officers, non-commissioned officers and soldiers of the Serbian Armed Forces, I hereby assess your exercise, your efforts and engagement as very good! Thank you for all you do for your country. I congratulate to you the Belgrade Liberation Day! May we always protect our freedom-loving values and our traditions. Especially dear veterans, you who even today stand in the rank line and you who defended Serbia - I wish to say a loud thank you for all you did for our homeland. Serbia will continue to protect its freedom-loving tradition, we will know how to preserve our sky, our country and our people. Long live the free and independent Serbia", said President Vučić. 

 

 

President Vučić thanked the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev as well as the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin for their support in the preservation of the territorial integrity and independence of Serbia and expressed his gratitude for the visit of Medvedev on the very same day when the anniversary of liberation from fascism is being marked. 

 

"Thank you for the friendship, for the support you render. Serbian people know how to acknowledge and appreciate that. Thank you very much for being in Belgrade today. We feel honoured because you mark the 75th anniversary of Belgrade liberation together with us, 75 years as of the day when the Red Army and Serbian partisans entered the city together and liberated it. 

 

It is with pride that I emphasise the fact that as people who suffered disastrous losses in the Second World War - we today represent the power which fights against the forging of history", said President Vučić.  

 

 

He pointed out that Serbia and Russia have exceptionally friendly relations. 

 

"It seems to me that after many meetings with President of Russia Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Medvedev I can say that our relations rest at the highest level in the last several decades, that they abound in sincere trust, respect and understanding of positions, which remains to be of vital importance for us as a smaller partner, because we can always count on the support of Moscow. We develop our cooperation in the manner that we help each other in international organisations, we seek to always understand one another. Thank you to Putin and Medvedev who always have time not only to hear us but also to listen to Serbia and to understand the difficulty of the situation in which Serbia - in the political sense - still stands", said the President. 

 

President Vučić emphasised that one of the most important topics is also economy and conveyed that the trade exchange marks a continuous growth, that in 2018 it reached 3.6 billion Euros which is by 18.6% more than in 2017, while in the first 8 months this year it reached 2.181 billion Euros which is almost by 8 per cent more as compared to the same period last year. 

 

According to his words, the trade is on the rise in all spheres. He expressed his belief that due to the large efforts of the Prime Ministers of the two countries we will also have a more extensive exchange in the spheres of the internet, software, digitalisation - as both of them are committed to these segments. 

 

 

"The agreement to be signed in Moscow next week by Prime Minister Ana Brnabić is also important for us. It entails much more work for our workers", said the President. 

 

President Vučić thanked Russia for creating space in a part of its market for Serbian products and added that Serbia is ready to do likewise for the products from Russia and that the economic relations keep developing in the excellent direction. President Vučić said that he is particularly interested in the continuation of the cooperation in other areas of social life as well. 

 

"We will finally be able to see in the National Museum the 166th page of the Miroslav's Gospel. I hope that in the future we will be able to have permanent and special exhibitions of the Russian museums, Hermitage and others. There are numerous spheres of possibilities for our cooperation", said the President. 

 

President Vučić expressed his gratitude to the Russian friends for their support and for treating Serbia as an equal partner, as a friend, in the same manner in which we perceive them and thanked Prime Minister Medvedev for the sincere support rendered adding that Serbian people know how to recognise and appreciate that. 

 

"Please, convey the greetings to President Putin, and I am looking forward to our 17th meeting on the 4th of December in Sochi", said President Vučić.  

 

Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev conveyed the greetings of President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin to the President of the Republic of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić and pointed out that there are not many countries in the world that Russia can consider as their friends as it does consider Serbia and added that the real friends are those with whom Russians share and uphold the joint history. 

 

At the joint press conference with the President of Serbia, Prime Minister Medvedev expressed his gratitude for attending the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Belgrade in the Second World War and for -as he said - spending this day among friends. 

 

We do not idealise the states that won in the Second World War, but the people, as people are the true creators of history. Here they defeated fascism and liberated Europe from concentration camps, punishments, killing, enslavement...", said Prime Minister Medvedev. 

 

He said that although this event gets more and more far away from us in terms of time, the more it becomes worth mentioning, preserving from oblivion and from attempts of the history revision. 

 

"We bear increasing responsibility to remember that history. History must not be subject to trade", said Medvedev and added that it is important for the young people to understand how valuable it is what our ancestors did for the peace.  

 

Prime Minister Medvedev confirmed that Russia will continue to support Serbia on the issue of Kosovo and Metohija and its territorial integrity based on the UN Security Council Resolution 1244. 

 

"You are familiar with the position of Russia. It is based on the UN Security Council Resolution 1244 and on what we always iterated to our Serbian friends - we stand firm with the full support to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Serbia. And we will be maintaining this position further on", said Prime Minister Medvedev. 

 

He reiterated that the countries must maintain pragmatic relations with other countries and added that only such relations can have a future. 

 

Prime Minister Medvedev reminded that there are large Russian companies operating in Serbia and that they contribute to the Serbian budget, such as NIS, but also the smaller ones whose contribution should not be underestimated. 

 

He said that the two countries will continue to develop the joint energy projects such as the TurkStream which will open many jobs to Serbia and funnel even more income to the budget. 

 

Prime Minister Medvedev also said that documents were signed today that relate to the development of infrastructure and especially railway infrastructure which - as he said - represents the "artery" of economic cooperation. 

 

"We are witnesses to extensive and serious documents which were signed today in the spheres of railways, technology, science, construction of a medical institute with research purposes, of all the things that lead us into the future. 

 

Through the signing of such agreements we affirm that we trust each other", said the Russian Prime Minister Medvedev. He estimated that the highest level of cooperation was realised in the area of agriculture and added that as of the sanctions introduced to Russia by the European Union - which Russia also introduced to them - Serbia has profited most. 

 

Prime Minister Medvedev iterated that the 166th page of the Miroslav's Gospel will be returned to Serbia and added that Russia understands it is "a sacred item for Serbs" and added that our country will also return to them the paintings of the great Russian artist Nikolay Rerikh which have tremendous value for the Russians. "We have agreed on such sensitive issues, and those are the friendly steps", concluded Prime Minister Medvedev. 

 

  

 

The 75th anniversary of the liberation of Belgrade in the Second World War was marked by the Solemn Academy held tonight in the Sava Centre.

 

The ceremony, attended by the President of the Republic of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić and Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev, commenced by the intonation of the national anthems of Serbia and Russia. 

 

A short documentary "The Road to Victory" was also the part of the programme - the film depicted the most dramatic moments of the battle for the liberation of Belgrade in 1944. President Vučić addressed the audience as well as Prime Minister Medvedev and the then member of the 1st Proletarian Brigade who took part in the liberation of the Serbian capital in 1944, Zdenko Duplančić.  

 

 

The battle for the liberation represents one of the largest in scope and the most important battles in the Balkans in the Second World War, and it lasted from the 12th to the 20th October 1944. 

 

With the liberation of Belgrade, the 1.287 days long German occupation of the Yugoslav capital was ended. 

 

Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev said in his address to the audience in the Sava Centre that throughout the entire history we had to defend our countries, we had to wage war although we never wanted to - we were defending our countries and helping each other. 

 

"We were so close to each other back then and I am convinced it will be so forever", said Medvedev. 

 

This day is very important for our countries, said Prime Minister Medvedev and added that the liberation of Belgrade was an outstanding heroic deed, and the memory of those who won the peace and freedom remains to be very important as preservation of the truth about the events of those times is the only remedy against the attempts to falsify the history. 

 

"There should not be any attempts to conceal, obscure or forget... We do remember the concentration camps, massive executions... Each Serb will always remember Kragujevac. It must be spoken about openly, without political and other modifications", said Prime Minister Medvedev. 

 

In the address to the representatives of the Serbian leadership and the audience, Prime Minister Medvedev said that it is very emotional to be on the stage after the address of the ones who liberated Belgrade and after the film witnessing their outstanding deeds. 

 

"However, we do understand that the victory was achieved thanks to the heroism and audacity of the ones who are here in this hall tonight and of the ones who are not among us for a long time now. That is why this victory is so significant. And that memory is important as well the memory of those who conquered that victory", said Prime Minister Medvedev. 

 

He expressed sincere gratitude to all of them and congratulated them the holiday which "we celebrate together" and added that to honour and credit of the liberation of Belgrade a huge firework will be organised in Moscow tomorrow. 

 

He also said that due attention should be addressed to the monuments of the heroes and expressed his gratitude to Serbia for taking such care about the Monument to the Red Army Soldier which he visited today. "Thank you so much for that", he said. 

 

 

President Vučić said tonight that Serbia knows the price of freedom because it has always been "buying it off" with the blood of its people and that is why it will never surrender its freedom to anyone. 

 

"It has been 75 years ever since this city, our Belgrade, has been a free city. And it was neither easy nor simple - quite the contrary - it cost blood to attain that freedom. Almost four thousand of the Red Army soldiers and members of the National-liberation army fell in the battle for that freedom", said President Vučić. 

 

President Vučić said that preserving this freedom is difficult, sometimes arduous and demanding of payment of a price, but that this freedom will never be betrayed and that graves of our ancestors who fought for it will never be betrayed. "We are the people of heroes, of winners and the people who brought the word freedom to the Balkans.

 

We are not the ones who wish to take someone's freedom away because we appreciate it only too much to deprive anyone of it", said President Vučić. 

 

 

President Vučić thanked all who helped in the liberation of Belgrade, but above all - to the Red Army because, as he said, without the Soviet friends we would not have conquered the freedom. 

 

He pointed out that the Serbian people, after so many victims, want to live in the freedom, to grow, to give birth and triumph in it, however not in the battles and wars but rather in the economy and sports.