Vucic: Agreement with UAE on kamikaze drone purchase due within 48 hours

ABU DHABI - Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic announced on Tuesday in Abu Dhabi Serbia would sign its first agreement to purchase UAE-made kamikaze drones within 48 hours and that the drones would be delivered soon.

"Those are kamikaze drones and will be in Serbian territory soon. We also hope we will be able to have the first kamikaze drones in the Serbian Armed Forces in the next five or six months," Vucic told reporters at the IDEX 2023 international arms fair.

"We must continue to work on everything else because a challenging period is ahead of us," Vucic said.

"Judging by Putin's statements, it is clear he will continue the fight in Ukraine very fiercely, which, as is the case with conflict escalations, will make Serbia's position more difficult politically, militarily and in every other sense. It is what we had expected and I expect that we will see that already in a day or two or three days - major changes on the battlefield and significant changes in further political actions towards Serbia by the West and by other international factors," Vucic said.

He said he had had important additional discussions with Serbian defence industry companies and that they needed to undergo reforms and introduce true corporate management and operate based on market principles, rather than sell products below cost prices.

Vucic said the UAE was satisfied with development projects presented by Serbia - howitzer bullets and new calibres with a range of over 70 km.

We want to achieve something that would be akin to the US HIMARS and try to do develop that in a year, meaning that we would include it in our arsenal in two years, he noted.