Three associates of former Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić recently tried to fly from Belgrade to Moscow but failed on their first attempt when their plane was turned around over Lithuania and sent back to the Serbian capital for security reasons, according to a report by local outlet Nova.
The Air Serbia plane was scheduled to operate a regular flight, JU134, from Belgrade to Moscow at about 6:48 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 3. Roughly two hours later, the aircraft reached southern Lithuania, where it was turned around. It returned to Belgrade at about 10 p.m.
On board were Serbia’s former Deputy Prime Minister and Movement of Socialists leader Aleksandar Vulin, Serbian People’s Party (SNP) founder Nenad Popović, and director of the Srbijagas state-owned gas company Dušan Bajatović.
According to Nova, the order to turn the plane around came from the head of corporate security at Belgrade’s Nikola Tesla airport and was issued on the grounds that Vulin had managed to board the aircraft without undergoing a security screening. It is unclear how. The flight reservation database also showed no ticket for him on that flight, although it did show that he had traveled to Moscow shortly before the Sept. 21-22 elections.
Popović had also bought tickets to Moscow for every day after the election through Nov. 7, suggesting he may have expected that he would need to leave the country but did not know exactly when.
Serbian opposition figures had earlier hinted that they knew about the Vučić allies’ plans for a departure from Belgrade. As the head of the country’s Democratic Party Srđan Milivojević asked rhetorically on social media a few hours before the flight:
“And who is fleeing to Moscow by plane tonight at 6:30 p.m.?”
Vulin and Bajatović later confirmed media reports that they had been on the plane with Popović. The former deputy prime minister called allegations that he had violated security procedures “lies,” while Bajatović said his trip was connected to negotiations over gas supplies and problems with payment transactions following the recent closure of Alta Bank in Serbia.
The plane eventually landed in Moscow on the morning of Nov. 4, with Vulin later posting a video address on Instagram recorded in central Moscow. In it, he said he had “not fled” Serbia but had come to Russia for a series of meetings related to gas deals.
Aleksandar Vulin served as deputy prime minister in the final years of Vučić’s presidency. Before that, he headed Serbia’s Interior Ministry and later its Defense Ministry, and from 2022 to 2023 led the country’s Security Intelligence Agency (BIA) — Serbia’s main civilian security and intelligence service. Vulin has long been known for his pro-Russian positions and for organizing surveillance of opposition activists in Belgrade. In 2021, he provided Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev with recordings of conversations involving Russian opposition activists in Serbia. Those recordings may have contributed to the arrest and conviction of Andrei Pivovarov, the former head of the opposition group Open Russia.
In 2024, Vulin received what was described as an “FSB order for cooperation” in Moscow, honoring his “professionalism” in addition to his work with the Russian security service.
Vulin’s tenure as deputy prime minister was brief, lasting from May 2024 to April 2025. Shortly before leaving the government, he was criticized by the EU enlargement commissioner over his pro-Russian stance. In March of 2025, he thanked Russia for helping Serbia “fight a color revolution” in reference to the large-scale student protests that had swept the country. Vulin had already been under U.S. sanctions since 2023.
Nenad Popović is the founder of the right-wing Serbian People’s Party. He currently serves as a minister without portfolio in Serbia’s government. In 2017, he was described as possibly being the country’s wealthiest politician thanks to a fortune built in part through business interests in Russia. Popović owns ABS Electro, a Russian electrical-engineering and industrial equipment group. Like Vulin, Popović is under U.S. sanctions.
Dušan Bajatović has headed state-owned Srbijagas since 2008. He was also recently appointed Russia’s honorary consul in Novi Sad.
Serbia’s snap parliamentary elections in late October were won by the protest-driven student movement, with the Student List securing an outright majority in the National Assembly. Shortly before the vote, Vučić resigned as president, and on election day, he conceded the defeat of his Serbian Progressive Party.
