US to sanction Serbia’s main oil company – Vucic

Decision to impose sanctions on NIS is due to its Russian ownership, the Serbian president has stated

US is set to slap sanctions on Serbia’s oil and gas company NIS due to its Russian ownership, the country’s president Aleksandar Vucic has said.

“We got confirmation that in the next few days, the US will introduce sanctions against NIS because of Russian ownership,” Vucic said in an interview with Serbian broadcaster Informer TV. However, Belgrade still hadn't received an “official paper with details” from Washington, he added.

NIS, the Serbian energy company, is predominantly owned by the Russian corporation Gazprom. In 2022, the Gazprom Neft company, which participated in the privatization of the largest oil company in the Western Balkans in 2008, reduced its stake in NIS to 50%, while Gazprom received 6.15%.

President Vucic also expects the UK to join the sanctions, “which means everyone,” he added during the interview. “I think this is part of broader geopolitical pressure on Russia,” he concluded.

After Gazprom Neft reduced its stake in NIS in 2022, Vucic said that the republic’s authorities could be forced to buy out or insist on selling Gazprom Neft’s stake in the company to a third party in the future, to protect themselves from the impact of anti-Russia sanctions.

Both Vucic and his cabinet have repeatedly highlighted the hypocrisy and double standards of the West. They insist on upholding Ukraine’s borders while simultaneously demanding that Serbia recognize the breakaway region of Kosovo as an independent state governed by NATO-backed ethnic Albanians.

Serbia is officially committed to joining the EU but the bloc has made its membership conditional on sanctioning Russia and on recognizing Kosovo, among other requirements, which Vucic has declared he will never accept.