Israel’s Arms Fixer Just Lost In Serbia - But It Goes Much Deeper

Right, so, Aleksandar Vučić has conceded defeat to Serbia’s student-backed movement in their recent elections. And while people were celebrating in Belgrade, the result left Benjamin Netanyahu with a nasty little problem: his Balkan ammunition supplier was heading for a change of management. Nobody has announced that the weapons supplies are stopping. But according to Defence News’s report out today, the winners propose investigating the previous administration’s arms dealings. Which means some of the arrangements Vučić liked to boast about could receive considerably less enthusiastic attention from his successors, because he hadn’t merely been exchanging pleasantries with Israel. He’d made himself useful. Back in October 2023, Israel urgently needed supplies. Vučić later told the Jerusalem Post that the request arrived on 8 October. Day one of the genocide of Gaza. There were approvals to collect from ministries, security agencies, all the stuff allied governments usually insist is terribly complicated when they get asked to explain what they are doing. Yet, in the interview published on 5 June 2025, he proudly explained: “we collected everything within four days”. Four days. That was the relationship Israel enjoyed with Serbia under Vučić: a leader taking personal credit for getting ammunition approvals organised quickly. Then he went further. Serbia would become a manufacturing base for Israeli-designed drones. On 17 September 2026, he opened the new assembly facility in Belgrade. A spanking new industrial achievement to show the voters. Investment, technology, progress, all the ingredients for another round of presidential self-congratulation. Except independent journalists weren’t allowed into the opening. Production confidentiality, apparently. Vučić could release his own pictures, but reporters would have to find their answers elsewhere. So they did.