The radius of action of Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has been restricted since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

This is especially true for Europe, because the sanctions of the EU also affect it.

His stays in Switzerland in January of this year and in France in November last year are likely to have been the last opportunities for Putin's chief diplomat to move around in Western Europe for a long time.

However, there is one country in Europe (apart from the special case of Belarus, which is only partially sovereign) that Lavrov would have received – actually.

Michael Martens

Correspondent for Southeast European countries based in Vienna.

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Actually, Lavrov should have held talks in Serbia this Monday and also on Tuesday.

The Balkan state, which is also a candidate for EU membership, has not endorsed its sanctions against Russia.

The program was already set: Lavrov should have met Head of State Aleksandar Vučić in Belgrade, as well as Parliament President Ivica Dačić and Porfirije, the Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church.

That's what Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, announced on Friday last week.

Milorad Dodik, the most powerful politician among the Bosnian Serbs, who linked his fate to Putin like no other politician in the Balkans, also wanted to come from Bosnia and behaved in a correspondingly submissive manner towards the Russian President.

Lavrov had even begun media preparations for his visit.

He gave an interview to a TV channel Dodiks (not Vučićs, which was noticed attentively in the region) and said he would speak in Belgrade on all topics "that interest our Serbian friends".

But nothing will come of it for the time being, at least not in a direct conversation.

Serbia's neighbors Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Montenegro, all NATO members, have refused to grant Lavrov's government plane overflight rights.

Good gas deal with Russia?

A look at the map shows that nothing would have changed even if Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán had intervened, because in order to get into Hungarian airspace, Lavrov's government aircraft would have had to cross Polish airspace first.

Serbian media have already speculated on how else Lavrov could get to Serbia.

In theory, he could have taken a scheduled flight.

After all, Air Serbia still flies daily from Belgrade to Moscow and Saint Petersburg.

But the idea that the proud minister of the Russian Federation would travel on the same plane as the common people was unrealistic right from the start.

Also because Air Serbia planes to Russia have recently had to turn back because of bomb threats.

That there would be such a threat on a plane with Lavrov on board can be taken for granted.

So nothing came of the Belgrade summit between the President of Serbia and the man who has been glossing over Putin's wars on the international stage for years.

There were important things to talk about.

At the end of May, after a phone call with Putin, Vučić announced a preliminary agreement on a gas supply contract that sounded almost sensational.

The previous ten-year contract between Serbia and Russia recently expired.

However, Vučić managed to negotiate a three-year extension on extremely favorable terms – at least that is what Vučić says.

Serbia will therefore pay up to ten times less for Russian gas than other customers on the continent.