MOSCOW, June 22. /TASS/. Moscow and Belgrade have discussed the sale by Gazprom of its stake in Serbia's national oil company Naftna Industrija Srbije (NIS). However, these contacts concern commercial matters, and therefore their content is not public, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said at a briefing.
"There have been contacts," he said in response to a question about whether talks on the sale of the company had taken place or whether the process had stalled. "Including with the Serbs, with Serbian counterparts," he added.
"But, of course, these are commercial contacts, the content of which should not be made public," the Kremlin spokesman added.
NIS shareholders have been forced to sell their assets because they came under US sanctions. In January 2025, the US Treasury Department placed the Serbian company on its sanctions list along with its majority shareholder Gazprom Neft. After several postponements, the restrictions entered into force on October 9 of the same year. On November 11, 2025, Serbia's Energy Ministry said that NIS's Russian owners had notified the United States of their readiness to transfer control of the company to a third party.
On January 19, Gazprom and Hungarian energy group MOL announced the signing of a memorandum of intent on the sale of a stake in Serbia's NIS. However, parliamentary elections were held in Hungary in April, after which Budapest's policy began to undergo certain changes.