Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić has issued a stark warning that Europe could be moving towards a wider and more dangerous war.
“I believe that we are at the beginning of a bigger war,” Vučić said in the MD MEETS podcast with Axel Springer chief executive Mathias Döpfner. He added that he had hoped someone would take a serious step towards peace, but no such effort had produced results. Europe was therefore “on the edge of a much, much bigger war”, he said, according to oe24.
Vučić spoke soon after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Belgrade. Serbia has tried to maintain communication with both Kyiv and Moscow. Vučić said he had spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin more than 20 times, although their conversations had become less frequent in recent months.
No end in sight
The Serbian leader said he did not expect the war in Ukraine to end soon. “I see no end to the war this year,” he said, adding that peace by next spring also appeared unlikely.
Both Russia and Ukraine are facing intense pressure, Vučić said. Yet neither side seems prepared to make the difficult concessions needed to open the door to a lasting settlement.
He also warned against hoping for Russia’s complete defeat. Because Russia is a nuclear power, he argued, the conflict cannot be safely resolved through the destruction of one side.
“We need a compromise solution, not the defeat of either side,” Vučić said.
At the same time, he stressed that Russia started the war and that the aggressor must not be confused with the victim. For Vučić, the immediate priority is a ceasefire before the fighting grows more dangerous and the shadow of war reaches even farther across Europe.
