Zelenskyy visits Serbia as Russian strikes kill four in Kyiv region

Volodymyr Zelenskyy made his first visit to Serbia as Russian missile and drone attacks killed four people in the Kyiv region, including a child. The timing laid bare Ukraine’s two-track fight: pressing for allies abroad while civilians at home remained under daily aerial threat.

Zelenskyy met Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić in Belgrade, with Serbia Palace serving as the setting for at least part of the talks and public welcome. The two leaders later pledged closer economic ties, a sign that Kyiv was using the visit to deepen contacts even in a capital that has kept unusually warm relations with Moscow since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

That choice of destination mattered. Serbia is one of the few European countries that has maintained friendly ties with Russia, and it has refused to join European Union sanctions against Moscow. Ukraine’s outreach to Belgrade showed an effort to widen its diplomatic base in places where support for Kyiv is cautious, contested or shaped by Serbia’s own balancing act between East and West.

The visit also exposed the strain of that balancing act. The European Council on Foreign Relations has described Serbia’s position as “disruptive neutrality,” a stance that has fueled unease across the Balkans and left Belgrade under pressure from both the European Union and NATO. For Ukraine, engaging a government that has not lined up with Western sanctions was less about immediate alignment than about keeping Serbia from drifting fully into Russia’s orbit.

The violence at home gave the trip its starkest context. In one account, Russian drone strikes killed four people in the Kyiv region; in another, Russian missile and drone attacks across Ukraine killed four and wounded 16. France 24 said one of those killed in the Kyiv region was a child. The strikes came the same day Zelenskyy was in Belgrade, underscoring how Ukraine’s diplomacy abroad remains inseparable from the human cost of the war at home.

Seen together, the visit and the attacks captured the contest now playing out across Europe’s gray-zone states. Ukraine is working to shore up support, economic ties and political recognition wherever it can find them. Russia is still using force to keep the pressure on, even as Serbian leaders try to preserve ties with Moscow while staying close to the West.