NATO partner Serbia admits buying Chinese missiles after photos leaked

Serbia recently purchased Chinese CM-400AKG air-to-surface ballistic missiles for its air force, becoming the weapon’s first European operator, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said late on Thursday

Serbia recently purchased Chinese CM-400AKG air-to-surface ballistic missiles for its air force, becoming the weapon’s first European operator, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said late on Thursday.

Serbia is striving to balance its partnership with NATO and aspirations to join the European Union with its centuries-old religious, ethnic and political alliance with Russia and strategic ties with China, a major investor.

“We have a significant number of those missiles, and we will have even more,” Vucic said in a live broadcast by Serbia’s state RTS TV, days after the first images of the missiles mounted on a Serbian plane leaked online.

Vucic said the Serbian air force had adapted its Soviet-made MiG-29 fighter jets to carry the CM-400AKG.

Croatia — a member of the E.U. and NATO, and Serbia’s foe during the wars of the 1990s — has criticized the missile purchase as a threat to regional stability, an attempt to alter the military balance and a sign of a growing arms race in the Balkans.