BELGRADE, November 6. /TASS/. Serbia does not plan to purchase Russia's S-400 missile defense systems, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic told RTS TV channel on Wednesday.
"From what I saw, this is an impressive system. But we don't plan to purchase it because we don't have money to pay for it, since we are building highways and investing in numerous other projects," Vucic said.
"You know, if you have a weapon like this, no one will ever attack you. In places with S-400 systems, US or any other pilots don't fly — not over Turkey, and Israeli pilots do not fly over Syria, except for the Golan Heights. We have aviation — stronger than ever before, and we will strengthen our defense systems with Pantsir [missile systems] and other things that are not on the [US] sanctions list," he added.
"Serbia is a small country, surrounded by NATO. You could see from the reaction to S-400 what they want," he said adding that he "will never allow such irresponsibility as in the 1990s again."
Vucic earlier attended the "Slavic Shield 2019" joint Russian-Serbian military drills and inspected the S-400 missile defense systems. He expressed hope that Serbia will once be able to afford purchasing those systems.