MOSCOW, May 13. /TASS/. Equipping Serbia’s Armed Forces with new armaments is a normal process, which should not worry anyone, Serbian Defense Minister Aleksandar Vulin said in an interview with TASS on Monday.

"There are major countries, which believe that we should not equip ourselves with armaments," Vulin said. "They should be powerful and armed, and we should not. That’s because we are a neutral state in military terms and we cannot expect that someone will come to protect us, and this means that we have to be strong. This is an answer to the question why Serbia is equipping itself with arms, this is normal."

According to Vulin, it’s up to Serbia’s neighbors, which are NATO member-states, to answer questions about military buildup. "Who is frightening them? Well, Serbia should not frighten them. We have always been and will be a factor of peace in the Balkans."

The Serbian defense minister recalled that after NATO attacked Serbia in 1999, the country’s aviation was fully destroyed and in the following years its army collapsed. When Aleksandar Vucic became Serbia’s defense minister in 2012 and then the prime minister our army started renewing its resources," Vulin stressed.

"And then, thanks to an agreement between President Vucic and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and also with [Belarusian President Alexander] Lukashenko we received ten MiG-29s, which we could never buy. Besides, we got a large number of tanks and armored personnel carriers for ground forces. At a personal initiative of [Russian Defense Minister Sergey] Shoigu we were also given the opportunity to train our pilots and now we can say that we again have aviation.".