21.12.2023.

Minister of Defence and Chief of General Staff host New Year and Christmas reception

Tonight, the President of the Republic and Supreme Commander of the Serbian Armed Forces, Aleksandar Vučić, attended the New Year and Christmas reception hosted by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence Miloš Vučević and Chief of the Serbian Armed Forces General Staff, General Milan Mojsilović, at the Guard Club in Topčider.

The reception was attended by the Serbian member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina Željka Cvijanović, President of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik, President of the National Assembly Vladimir Orlić, government ministers, MPs, members of the Defence Minister’s and the Chief of the General Staff’s collegiums, representatives of the local self-government, government institutions, religious communities, diplomatic and military diplomatic corps, veterans, and numerous public figures.

The New Year reception is a good opportunity, Minister Vučević said in his speech, to thank everyone for the support and help they have provided to the Ministry of Defence and the Serbian Armed Forces this year and to invite everyone to work together with even greater dedication next year in order to make Serbia a safer country.

Giving an overview of the most important results achieved in the defence system in 2023, Minister Vučević emphasized that since January, salaries had been increased by 25 per cent for members of the Serbian Armed Forces, and by 12.5 per cent for all members of the Ministry of Defence.

- We have managed to increase salaries and provide special bonuses for researchers, scientists at the Military Technical Institute, which was a task assigned to us by the state leadership. We have successfully started "Project 5,000" by strengthening our Special Forces. At the display of military capabilities "GRANITE 2023" held in April, we showcased more than 2,300 types of weapons and military equipment, and in such large quantities that were not seen even at the famous Yugoslav People’s Army parade in 1985. We have adopted a systematic approach to providing housing solutions for our service members. We have continued to invest heavily in weapons and military equipment. After more than 40 years, we have procured new CASA transport aircraft, new Mi-35 helicopters, started the robotization of the Serbian Armed Forces in accordance with the directives from the President of the Republic and Supreme Commander, started the development of unmanned aerial vehicles, drones, modernization of tanks, armoured and infantry fighting vehicles, anti-aircraft weapons. We have acquired all kinds of assets so that Serbia and its citizens would be safer - said the Minister of Defence.

According to him, the investments will not stop there, they will continue.

- We have recently signed contracts for the investment of more than 100 million euros in the Serbian Defence Industry. Such huge investment in equipment, in technology, in new production facilities is unprecedented and is proof of Serbia’s strengthening and empowerment. It hasn’t always been like this. There were times when military pay was literally as low as social benefits. There were no housing programmes. The defence industry was going through agony. New technology and equipment were not being bought, and the existing ones were being destroyed, cut into scrap metal and melted down. That was not reform aimed at freeing us from redundancies, as they used to say, but a plan for the complete destruction of the Serbian Armed Forces and reducing it to the level of a volunteer fire brigade, which was humiliating for the entire nation and homeland - Minister Vučević said.

The situation is different now and it requires greater dedication and more hard work in the coming year.

- Is everything I have mentioned true or is it cheap propaganda? Are we really working at our full physical and intellectual capacity for the benefit of Serbia? We got the answer to those questions on December 17, 2023. The people said everything loud and clear, so there is no dilemma. We received a message from the people at the elections saying that they trust us and that together we will fulfil everything that we have promised, all our goals, desires and dreams for our country, for Serbia. So I would like to thank you once again for everything we did together in 2023. I would also like to thank the President of the Republic and Supreme Commander of the Serbian Armed Forces for his support, guidelines, directives, orders, and daily communication aimed at making the Serbian Armed Forces and the Ministry of Defence stronger, and thank you all for your contribution, help and cooperation - stressed Minister Vučević.

We have a lot of work to do to make Serbia safe and secure for all its citizen, he stressed.

- I wish you a Christmas and New Year filled with love and warmth, may God bless you with good health, strength and faith so that we can build our Serbia as we have dreamed, united as brothers. Let us be united in faith and love for our fatherland, its sons and daughters, its workers, its soldiers and its children. Long live the Serbian Armed Forces! Long live Serbia - Minister Vučević said.

At the reception, the guests had the opportunity to watch a film presenting the most significant results achieved by the Ministry of Defence and the Serbian Armed Forces over the past year, produced by the Public Relations Department of the Ministry of Defence, and the programme ended with music performed by the MOD’s Artistic Ensemble "Stanislav Binički".