Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was making his first official visit to Serbia — a rare European country still closely aligned with Moscow — on Saturday as Ukraine seeks to bolster international support in the face of intensifying Russian strikes.
Mr. Zelenskyy received a ceremonial welcome as talks with his counterpart Aleksandar Vucic got under way at the presidential palace, after another intense bombardment of Kyiv and the surrounding region overnight killed at least four people.
Diplomacy is at a standstill more than four years after the start of Russia’s large-scale offensive against Ukraine and the two countries are ramping up long-range strikes, causing a growing number of civilian casualties.
Moscow has significantly upped its attacks on the Ukrainian capital in recent months, typically firing salvos of hard-to-intercept ballistic missiles in short blitzes, with Ukraine pleading for more U.S.-made Patriot interceptors.
Kyiv, in turn, has been firing record numbers of drones at Russia in retaliation.
A senior Ukrainian official earlier described Mr. Zelenskyy’s visit to Moscow’s traditional ally Serbia as “a slap in the face for the Russians”.
Serbia is historically close to Russia and Vucic has refused to sanction Moscow, a move that has irked the EU and slowed Belgrade’s path to joining the bloc.
Mr. Zelenskyy had dinner on Friday with Vucic, who repeated this week that he will not change his mind on sanctions, ahead of the talks.
“We will discuss expanding economic ties between our countries, relations with the European Union, other areas that can benefit our nations, and security issues,” Mr. Zelenskyy said on X.
After arriving at the palace on Saturday (August 8) morning, the leaders posed for photos before talks began behind closed doors.
They are later due to address the media.
Mr. Zelenskyy — who has toured much of the world seeking support since Russia’s 2022 invasion — has not visited Serbia since he became president in 2019.
Although heavily dependent on cheap Russian gas and one of the rare European leaders to still visit Moscow, Vucic has also supplied non-military aid to Kyiv.
The Kremlin has accused Serbian firms of selling munitions to Ukraine, a claim Vucic has repeatedly denied.
Vucic went to Ukraine for a regional summit in 2025 and visited Kyiv this year. He has promised assistance to Ukraine but avoided signing a formal declaration of support in the war.
Three-year-old killed
The visit comes as Russia launched another overnight barrage of missiles and drones, targeting mostly the capital Kyiv region.
The attack killed three people, including a child, outside Kyiv, Mr. Zelenskyy said on X on Saturday.
“Last night, Russia killed three people in Pukhivka, Kyiv region, with drone strikes — a grandfather, a grandmother, and their grandson,” Mr. Zelenskyy said, adding that “the boy was only three years old”.
Ukraine’s state emergency service shared photos of a destroyed building in flames, saying the attack in Pukhivka destroyed a two-storey house and two cars and sparked a fire in a warehouse.
“Four more people were hospitalised: the child’s parents, his 15-year-old brother, and a neighbour who came to the family’s aid and was wounded in a double-tap strike,” Mr. Zelenskyy said.
Another person was killed in a strike “involving six ballistic missiles against civilian infrastructure in Kyiv.”
He urged more pressure on Russia, including “new sanctions that will prevent the production of these ballistic missiles”.
An AFP reporter in the capital heard a dozen explosions as Ukraine’s air force warned of the “threat of ballistic weapon use from the north”.
Published – August 08, 2026 09:32 pm IST
