BELGRADE, November 24. /TASS/. Serbia and Russia maintain their military-technical cooperation at a good level, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said in his address to the nation on Wednesday.

"Yes, we have good military-technical cooperation with the Russian Federation and we are also cooperating with France. In early December, we will hold a meeting of all senior officers on the basic documents for the army and show, in a very transparent way, what we are doing for the army. Yes, we invest in defense a lot because we can afford that and our economy is getting stronger. We would have been easy prey, had we not been doing that," the Serbian leader 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.

On November 25, the Black Sea resort of Sochi will be the venue for the scheduled talks of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vucic who will arrive in Russia on a visit.

Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday that both leaders would focus on the issues of mutually advantageous bilateral cooperation at their negotiations. The Russian presidential spokesman stressed that these would be very important talks with Russia’s "ally and friend.".