Serbia bought 11 Russian-made Mi-35 military helicopters from Cyprus, as it seeks to strengthen its air force and remain a dominant military force in the region, the country’s president Aleksandar Vucic said on Thursday.

The Cypriot government and Serbia agreed in 2021 to buy aging Mi-35 helicopters in need of repair for an unspecified price, part of which Belgrade offset by exporting Serbian-made weapons.

“We paid more than half their value to our Cypriot brothers with our own weapons…mainly…artillery,” Vucic told reporters during a presentation at Batajnica Air Base near Belgrade.

He also announced a sale of 48 Serbian-made self-propelled howitzers worth 311 million euros to an unnamed country. “The process still needs to be approved by parliament,” Vucic said.

EU candidate Serbia, which has one of the largest armies in the Western Balkans, still relies on ex-Soviet military technology, but in recent years has begun buying Western and Chinese weapons systems and aircraft.

In June, Vucic reported that Belgrade was in talks to buy Rafale fighter jets from the French company Dassault. Serbia has already bought helicopters from Airbus and transport aircraft.

Serbia is militarily neutral, but it participates in NATO’s Partnership for Peace, a program for countries that do not aspire to join the alliance.

Belgrade has scaled back military cooperation with Moscow since Russia invaded Ukraine and has condemned the invasion. However, unlike the European Union and other Western countries, it has not imposed sanctions on Moscow.

Serbia’s defense budget it amounts to $1.43 billion, or 2% of GDP.