Short answers, pulled from the story.
Russia and Serbia established formal diplomatic relations in 1816, between the Russian Empire and the Principality of Serbia. The two peoples had earlier historical ties stretching back to the 14th century, when Serbian refugees sought shelter in Russia after the Ottoman invasion of Serbia.
Tito rejected Stalin’s pressure to integrate Yugoslavia into the Soviet bloc, and on the 28th of June 1948 a Cominform resolution condemned Yugoslavia’s Communist Party leadership and expelled it from the international Communist movement. Stalin expected Tito to fall from power once he lost Soviet backing, attempted to have him assassinated on several occasions, and the following year Soviet and Hungarian forces massed on Yugoslavia’s northern border. Relations were only normalized after Stalin’s death, formalized by the Belgrade Declaration of 1955.
Russia has backed Serbia’s position that Kosovo’s declaration of independence was immoral and illegal. Vladimir Putin described its recognition by major world powers as a terrible precedent that undermined the international system. In 2014, Russia cited Kosovo’s independence as a justification for recognizing Crimea’s independence and subsequently annexing it.
Russia supplied roughly 90% of Serbia’s annual natural gas consumption as of the most recent available data, delivered via the TurkStream pipeline. Russia’s merchandise exports to Serbia stood at about $1.7 billion in 2023, with more than two-thirds consisting of natural gas. The Serbian national oil company Naftna Industrija Srbije is majority-owned by Gazprom Neft and operates a refinery in Pančevo with a capacity of 4.8 million tonnes, plus 334 filling stations covering 74% of the domestic market.
More than 300,000 Russian nationals entered Serbia after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, with approximately 53,000 issued residence permits. The 2022 Census recorded 10,486 Russians in Serbia before this wave. Serbia remained the only European country besides Belarus still maintaining a visa-free policy with Russia after 2022.
Serbian armed forces have acquired Russian-made Mi-35 attack helicopters, Pantsir-S1 air defense systems, R-77 air-to-air missiles for MiG-29 aircraft, Ataka missiles for Mi-35 helicopters, and Kornet anti-tank missiles. Serbia also participated in the Slavic Brotherhood trilateral military drills with Russia and Belarus, initiated in 2015, before withdrawing from the exercises in 2021 under pressure from the European Union.