Russia Signals Readiness to Continue Cooperation with Serbia After Student List Victory

Dragon Media News Desk

Russia says it hopes Serbia’s next leadership will maintain close bilateral ties following the opposition Student List’s victory in the country’s October 25 parliamentary election.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova made the remarks on October 26 in response to a media question about the preliminary results. She said Russian representatives had observed the vote through multilateral missions, including the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly, and on a bilateral basis. Their findings and assessments would be reviewed, she added.

Serbia’s Republic Electoral Commission reported that the Student List received 52.71 percent of the votes counted from 8,187 polling stations, giving it 140 seats in the 250-seat parliament. The “Aleksandar Vučić – United Serbia” list received 39.17 percent and 104 seats in the preliminary count.

Zakharova described Serbia as a traditionally friendly country with which Russia shares extensive political, economic, cultural, historical and humanitarian ties. Moscow, she said, trusts that Serbia’s leadership will preserve the positive momentum in relations and continue developing mutually beneficial cooperation on an equal basis.

She added that such cooperation serves the fundamental national interests of both countries.