Vucic: Serbia has to be prepared

Vucic wrote in an Instagram post that “Serbia does not pose any danger to anyone but has to be fully prepared as a militarily neutral country whose territorial integrity has been endangered”. “In today’s conditions if you don’t have a sufficiently strong military you won’t have a state and we are always prepared to preserve our own,” he wrote.

“Even though we are a small country, we are responsible, serious and always capable of defending our territory,” he said in the post, adding that the Serbian military has upgraded its capabilities over the past year but that the process of arming the military and strengthening the country’s industry has to speed up. “Buying weapons and equipment requires new soldiers and we devoted special attention to forming new units,” he added.

Speaking to reporters after a tour of the Guards Barracks in Belgrade’s Topcider neighborhood, Vucic said that General Staff officers and Defense Ministry officials presented what he said were convincing argument in favor of reinstating conscription, adding that he ordered them to draft a proposal by May 1 which can be sent on to parliament after being reviewed.

“We’ll se if it (mandatory military service) will be 90 or 100 days or perhaps 110 days, also when that will happen, how to meet the financial and logistical requirements. We will discuss it,” Beta reported him as saying and adding that there will be some changes in doctrine.