Volodymyr Zelensky is due to land in Belgrade for the first time on 8 August. A senior Ukrainian official confirmed the information, and the weight of the news isn't in the visit itself - it's in who is receiving whom.

Serbia is a country that has cultivated closeness with Moscow for decades. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Belgrade has tried to walk a rope strung between the Kremlin and the West, and so far it has managed not to fall off either side. Zelensky's visit is the first time that rope gets pulled taut in front of cameras.

Gas outweighs symbols

Russia remains Serbia's key diplomatic ally, and the dependence on Russian natural gas isn't rhetorical - it's a bill that arrives every winter. Which is exactly why every symbolic move by Belgrade gets measured twice. Aleksandar Vučić attended the Victory Day military parade in Moscow last year. This year he wasn't there.

At the same time, in June 2025 he made his first official visit to Ukraine, at the Ukraine - Southeast Europe summit in Odesa. On 15 July he was in Kyiv again, as part of a delegation of European leaders on Statehood Day. Three steps towards Kyiv, one absence from Moscow - Belgrade's bookkeeping is tidier than it looks.

The weapons nobody talks about out loud

According to certain claims, Serbia has been indirectly supplying weapons to Ukraine. Vučić publicly denied those claims in May 2025. The denial is the official position, the claims keep circulating, and between them sits a gap nobody wants to fill.

The Balkans know this scene by heart: a country on excellent terms with everyone and obligated to no one. The question is how long that can last when the guest arriving is precisely the man your biggest ally is at war with. On 8 August the answer won't be given in words, but in who ends up standing next to whom in the photograph.