Serbia and Israel have forged one of Europe’s most consequential strategic partnerships. Two landmark contracts with Elbit Systems tell the story. In early 2025, Serbia purchased $335 million in precision rocket artillery and Hermes 900 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). In August 2025, the two governments signed a $1.6 billion follow-on deal covering long-range precision missiles, additional UAVs, electronic warfare suites, command-and-control platforms, and night-vision upgrades. Deliveries will run through 2030.
These systems hand Serbia a standoff dominance across the Western Balkans. In return, Israel secures a reliable European ammunition supplier and a secure political foothold on a continent that has grown hostile toward the Jewish state.
[Israeli] systems hand Serbia a standoff dominance across the Western Balkans.
Serbia’s military modernization under President Aleksandar Vučić is deliberate and accelerating. Defense spending rose steadily from $1.27 billion in 2020 to $1.47 billion in 2021, $1.72 billion in 2022, $2.14 billion in 2023, and $2.32 billion in 2024—roughly 2.5 percent of gross domestic product, the highest share in the Western Balkans. Albania spends about one-sixth as much; Bosnia and Herzegovina’s forces remain fragmented and chronically underfunded. While Croatia fields Rafale fighters and Leopard tanks, Serbia’s new Israeli acquisitions deliver unmatched 186-mile precision strike, persistent medium-altitude intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance-strike capability, and fully networked fires layered atop its existing Chinese and Russian platforms. No neighbor can match the resulting multidimensional qualitative edge.
The strategic payoff extends beyond Serbia proper. Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik has openly aligned his entity with Israel, comparing it to Israel’s own position and hosting Israeli delegations. Government buildings in Banja Luka were illuminated in Israeli-flag colors immediately after the October 7, 2023, attacks. A stronger Serbia now provides a credible deterrent umbrella for these alignments. Israel receives equally tangible returns.
While much of Western Europe canceled contracts and imposed de facto embargoes after the October 7, 2023, attacks, Serbia ramped up ammunition shipments. Official trade data show Serbian arms and ammunition exports to Israel surged from $3.25 million in 2023 to $54 million in 2024, and then to $132 million in 2025. Open-source flight tracking logged thirty-eight cargo flights from Belgrade to Israel’s Nevatim Airbase in 2025 alone—double those of the previous year. These 155-mm shells and rockets arrived as Israeli domestic production lines strained under wartime demand.
Israel transfers high-end platforms that Western European governments have largely withheld.
In exchange, Israel transfers high-end platforms that Western European governments have largely withheld. Plans for a joint UAV production facility in Serbia—with Elbit holding 51 percent ownership and integrating Serbian engineers—embed Israeli technology deep inside Europe while shielding the partnership from future sanctions or supply-chain disruption.
Both nations share the same profile: compact, historically encircled actors that refuse outside arbitration on core territorial and security questions. Serbia stands firm on Kosovo and the Republika Srpska; Israel does on the West Bank and Gaza. Serbia declined to join the European Union’s condemnations of Israel after October 7, 2023. Jerusalem, in turn, sees Belgrade as its most dependable partner among the former Yugoslav republics.
The axis carries clear geostrategic weight. It creates a sanctions-proof supply line for Israel while giving Serbia diversified options beyond Russian and Chinese dependence. It inserts an Israeli manufacturing and diplomatic node into a region Russia still regards as its historic sphere.
European efforts to isolate Jerusalem have not weakened it; they have instead spawned precisely these counter-coalitions grounded in raw national interest.
Serbia’s documented defense-budget surge and the precise capabilities of the Israeli systems confirm a strategy of qualitative regional superiority. Jerusalem’s verified ammunition-import spike and the joint-factory plans confirm the relationship is mutual and built on concrete, verifiable numbers.
In an increasingly fractured Europe, these relationships supply Israel with both materiel capability and political breathing room.
As European Union member states such as Italy suspend key defense-cooperation agreements—Rome halted automatic renewal of the 2003 pact on military equipment and technology exchange on April 14, 2026—Jerusalem must deepen ties with reliable European partners outside the consensus machine. Serbia delivers exactly that: a non-European Union ally offering strategic depth in the Balkans through ammunition flows and a manufacturing base immune to European Union sanctions.
Inside the European Union, the Czech Republic has maintained steady support via rapid arms deliveries, mobile air-defense radars, and Spyder systems, while doubling arms exports to Israel between 2022 and 2024. Following Viktor Orbán’s defeat in the April 12, 2026, elections, Hungary’s new government has signaled that it will evaluate European Union decisions on Israel on a case-by-case basis.
In an increasingly fractured Europe, these relationships supply Israel with both materiel capability and political breathing room when larger Western capitals retreat. The steel alliance between Jerusalem and Belgrade forms a cornerstone of a pragmatic network that safeguards Israeli security in today’s multipolar order.
