Haaretz: Serbia buys weapons from Israel for 335 million dollars
Serbia will purchase advanced artillery systems and unmanned aerial vehicles from the Israeli company Elbit Systems in a major deal worth $335 million, writes the Israeli Haaretz.
Serbia is at the height of an arms race with its Balkan neighbor Croatia – which belongs to both NATO and the European Union – and Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić has boasted that the new systems are even better than the American-made systems that Croatia has purchased, writes Haaretz .
New acquisitions will enable Serbia to respond to any challenge, Vučić added, including those "who think they have an advantage over us."
In a press statement in late November, Elbit announced a deal with an unnamed "European country."
But Vučić revealed the next day which country it was in his address to the nation.
The purchase came amid a thaw in Israeli -Serbian ties that included mutual arms sales .
Elbit said in a statement that it had been awarded a $335 million contract to provide PULS artillery rockets and launchers, as well as Hermes 900 drones, with delivery over the next three and a half years.
The PULS is a multiple rocket launcher developed by Israel Military Industries, a subsidiary of Elbit. It can launch many different types of missiles, including Grads and LAR, and has a range of up to 300 kilometers. The Hermes 900 is an advanced surveillance/attack drone that can carry heavy payloads for extended periods of time. It has been sold in the past to India, Thailand, Azerbaijan, and other countries.
Although Elbit did not reveal the name of the buyer's country, Vučić's speech the next day gave plenty of hints, the Israeli media outlet writes.
The media in both Serbia and Croatia closely followed the arms race, and therefore reported extensively on the Elbit Agreement.
"I would like to inform you that after persistent negotiations, we have signed a contract to purchase the most powerful artillery systems in the world. We have also purchased some of the most sophisticated drones in the world," Haaretz reports.
He continued:
"This is the most sophisticated weapon in the world, with direct communication from the command center through drones to missiles, which instantly launch and destroy everything. It is undoubtedly more powerful than HIMARS. Now you understand what we are buying."
HIMARS is an advanced American artillery system that has been sold to many other countries, including Ukraine, which is using it to fight Russian forces. The system was recently sold to Croatia.
Vučić's words were widely reported by the leading Serbian aviation magazine Tango Six, as well as other Balkan media. Unlike Croatia, Serbia is not a member of NATO or the EU.
Elbit and the Defense Ministry declined to answer Haaretz's questions about whether Serbia provided any guarantees as part of the agreement, or whether the agreement included any usage restrictions that would ensure that Serbia would not use Israeli weapons against a NATO member.
"Generally, Elbit Systems sells defense solutions abroad in accordance with specific licenses issued by the Ministry of Defense for each product and capability. In other words, not every product or known capability is sold abroad. Elbit Systems does not provide specific information about the content of any specific deal with a customer, but we emphasize that the company takes care to act in accordance with its licenses," the company said.
The sale of weapons from Serbia to Israel jumped
Over the past year, Israel and Serbia have developed closer ties. President Isaac Herzog visited Belgrade a few months ago, and Haaretz previously reported that since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, the number of arms shipments from Serbia to Israel has jumped by thousands of percent.
Haaretz reported last week that Serbia's internal security service hacked the phones of Serbian journalists and social activists, using a tool purchased from the Israeli company Cellebrite.
It is no coincidence that Vučić said that the systems Serbia had just purchased were superior to those of its rivals. Not long before that, Washington approved the sale of HIMARS to Croatia.
In his speech, Vučić also mentioned a huge deal with France, worth around a billion euros, for the procurement of helicopters and 12 new Rafale fighter jets.
Vučić then sent a warning to Croatia - and indirectly to the EU and NATO, which refused to include Serbia in their ranks.
"This acquisition will allow us to respond to any challenge and to all those who thought they had an advantage over us," he said.
His statements, along with the deal with Elbit, have raised concerns in Croatia, which, in addition to new artillery systems, recently purchased 12 second-hand Rafale fighter jets.
The chance that these two countries, which fought a bloody war with each other approximately 30 years ago, will again find themselves in a military conflict is extremely small, writes the Israeli media.
However, Croatian analysts point out that lately there has been a lot of tension between them.
A political source in Zagreb, the Croatian capital, said he wondered why Israel was arming Serbia rather than trying to promote defense ties with his country.
One possible explanation is that Croatia preferred to buy American and European weapons. A few years ago, the Israeli aviation industry tried to sell used F-16 fighter jets to the Croatian Air Force, but the sale was not approved by the United States, which manufactures the aircraft.
Israel had extensive defense ties with Croatia up until then. This included deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars with Elbit and IAI to upgrade old Soviet tanks and aircraft, as well as Croatia's purchase of Rafale Spike anti-tank missiles.
Srbija će kupiti napredne sisteme artiljerije i bespilotne letelice od izraelske kompanije Elbit Sistems u poslu vrednom 335 miliona dolara
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