China made its first major arms delivery to a European country this weekend as six of its Y-20 heavy transport planes flew to Serbia’s capital Belgrade.
In the cargo bays, according to military analysts, an uncertain number of long-range FK-3 anti-aircraft batteries purchased by the Serbs in 2020.
The moment couldn’t be more sensitive. Serbia is one of Russia’s closest allies to Vladimir Putin, who in turn has China’s biggest partner — Beijing has not condemned the invasion of Ukraine and has kept a cautious public distance from the conflict under US pressure.
Serbian President Aleksandr Vucic was re-elected last week, and although his country voted at the United Nations to condemn the attack, the leader avoids criticism of Putin and maintains good relations with Moscow, a historic ally with whom he has ethnic, linguistic and cultural ties. religious.
The plot thickens due to the fear, among European observers, that the instability that an eventual Russian victory against Kiev, even if partial, could generate on the continent – particularly, in the troubled Balkans.
The 1990s saw the partition of Yugoslavia, a Serbia-centered federation, which took place with varying degrees of violence: from the brief conflict that saw Slovenia gain independence in 1991 to the bloody civil war between Serbs, Croats and Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
But the lump in Belgrade’s throat is Kosovo, an Albanian-majority province that became a country due to the military intervention of NATO, the US-led alliance, in support of separatists who accused Serbs of genocide in 1999. The action is still ongoing today. cited by any politician in Russia when pointing out what they call Western expansionism.
In that war, what was left of Yugoslavia (Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo) was bombed from the air until it ceded control of the then province. Adding spice to the current narrative, an alleged mistake destroyed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.
With all this, in Eastern European political circles there is speculation that Serbia may eventually try to regain control over the region, in which Russian and, presumably, Chinese support would be supported.
The grand style arrival of the weapons, with the planes entering European airspace on Friday night (8), drew attention. The Y-20s are similar models to the giant American C-17s, a symbol of Washington’s global projection power, and they flew according to pictures taken by aircraft observers with their military countermeasures systems ready to use.
That is, they perceived some risk of flying in the congested airspace of NATO, full of fighter jets, drones and electronic spy planes around the conflagrated region.
And then there are the weapons themselves, not used on European territory. The FK-3s are export versions of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s standard HQ-22 missile system. They can hit targets up to 150 km away, similar to the Russian S-300s used by both sides in the Ukrainian war.
The Chinese purchase was considered intriguing when announced precisely because Serbia is a frequent customer of Putin’s military industry. Belgrade has also acquired Chengdu Pterodactyl drones, which can be used for reconnaissance or missile and bomb strikes.
The country’s weapons inventory is basically composed of Soviet and Russian equipment, and now with what Vucic announced on Sunday as “the new pride of the Serbian Armed Forces”. Until now, Belgrade has only operated old, short-range, portable systems.
In recent years, the US has insisted on including the strategic threat it perceives in China as a priority agenda for NATO, which was created to contain the Soviets in Europe. The war brought the focus back to Moscow, but the alliance between Putin and Xi Jinping and the rearrangement of the geopolitical landscape inspired by the conflict seems to bring all the actors to the same stage of the Cold War 2.0 that was already being fought by the Chinese and Americans.
