MOSCOW, February 22. /TASS/. Drawing Serbia into NATO against the backdrop of deaths of its diplomats under American bombs is a humiliation for the country, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has told the Rossiya 1 TV channel.
"They are told, 'You have to be in NATO, particularly Montenegro, because it is your security. We will protect you.' The say the same things to Serbia. How can you protect this country, if, despite the available information that people are held hostage, you bomb them. What kind of security are you talking about? I think this is a special kind of humiliation, attempts to impose the ‘Stockholm Syndrome’, when they force their victims to love them and admit publicly that they want to be with them," Zakharova said.
Earlier reports said that two employees of the Serbian Embassy in Tripoli abducted by gunmen in November 2015 had died in the U.S. air strike against a camp of the Islamic State terrorist group (banned in Russia) in Libya.
"The sad thing is that this information was provided by the FBI and the CIA, the Serbian leadership said this. That is, they knew. Now they deny that they know the whereabouts," Zakharova said.
Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic has confirmed the death of the employees of the Serbian Embassy in Libya. He said that they "had been killed by American bombs," but added that Serbia "needed the U.S. as a friend and partner, not as an enemy."
For his part, Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic said that Serbia would demand explanations from the United States over the diplomats’ deaths.