Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic denied reports that Wagner paramilitary personnel manned the barricades in the north of Kosovo.

Speaking live on the Serbian pro-regime Happy TV, Vucic said that the reports were “notorious lies” and added that it isn’t fair to call Serbs to wage war in Ukraine.

Wagner, a private Russian military company engaged in Ukraine, advertised for personnel on Russia Today’s Serbian-language portal.

The Serbian president said it’s not fair of “Russian friends” to call Serbs to join Wagner and go to war, recalling that Serbia accepted Russians fleeing the war and is the only European country not to impose sanctions on Moscow. “Why are you doing this to Serbia? Why are you from Wagner calling anyone from Serbia when you know that is against our regulations?” he said.

According to him, whoever calls to war is as dangerous to the state as the people saying it should abandon Kosovo. “We have those alleged patriots, “voluntary donors of other people’s blood”, who never signed up to help under arms when things were difficult in Kosovo… and those people are equally sly and dangerous to the state as the people who say we should accept an independent Kosovo,” Vucic said.