BELGRADE, November 16. /TASS/. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said during his tour of the armaments exhibition on the occasion of Army Day that he was grateful to Russia for the delivery of military hardware to the republic, in particular, T-72MS tanks.

"We have received this from Russians. [Russian Defense Minister] Sergey Shoigu recently handed over this hardware to us. The hardware was transferred in Nis. Indeed, we are grateful to our Russian friends that they have sent it [the materiel] to us. These tanks [T-72MS] have special protection and the transfer took place in Nis," Vucic said.

The president asked Serbian tank crews about their opinion about the Russian armor. "This is the best tank in the world," a Serbian armored corps officer said.

Russia earlier handed over 30 T-72MS tanks and 30 BRDM-2MS armored personnel carriers worth 75 million euros to Serbia. Vucic also said that the first batch of Kornet anti-tank missile systems would arrive in Serbia from Russia by the end of the year.

From 2018 to February 2020, Russia handed over to Serbia four Russian-made Mi-35M helicopters, six MiG-29 fighter jets, ten BRDM-2 reconnaissance and patrol armored vehicles, three Mi-17V-5 transport helicopters, and also Pantsyr-S1 air defense missile/gun systems as part of its military and technical assistance to the Balkan country.

As then-Serbian Defense Minister Aleksandar Vulin earlier told TASS, the combat potential of the republic’s army had strengthened substantially thanks to Belgrade’s military and technical cooperation with Moscow.