Talks for EU membership are not going anywhere for two decades. Not much to threaten Serbia with in this regard. I think Serbia's regime prefers this status-quo

Talks for EU membership are not going anywhere for two decades. Not much to threaten Serbia with in this regard. I think Serbia's regime prefers this status-quo too, since it's easier to have authoritarian government without pesky EU rules about freedom of media, independence of courts, corruption, etc. Seems that EU prefers this status quo as well. Trade with Russia is not that significant for Serbia, 5-8%. And we mostly import oil and gas. As long as EU keeps buying that from Russia there are no issues there. We export food to Russia, and we can probably have a barter trade if banking system is completely cut off. All of this is pretty much insignificant and mostly about diplomatic "are you with or against us". Serbia is too small to make any kind of real difference either way.