The increasingly trivial and petulant behavior of some EU member states was on full display today, as Lithuanian and Latvian authorities blocked Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić’s plane from flying through their airspace en route to Moscow.
The trip, which coincides with the 80th anniversary of Victory Day—commemorating the defeat of Nazi Germany—is part of a diplomatic mission by Vučić and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico.
The Baltic states, according to the Serbian media company Novosti, cited vague “technical and diplomatic sensitivities” for the restriction, a thinly veiled excuse that reflects more about their insecurities and alignment with Brussels groupthink than any legitimate international standard. While Lithuania and Latvia appear content to grandstand, Polish authorities took a somewhat more nuanced, if still condescending, approach.
Warsaw granted overflight permission to Prime Minister Fico’s government aircraft, but not without publicly chastising him for attending the Russian event. The Polish Foreign Ministry issued a sanctimonious statement condemning Fico’s decision to engage with Moscow.
Yet notably, they acknowledged there were “no formal international legal obstacles” to the overflight request—an admission that the bans by others are purely political.
Confusion swirled Tuesday afternoon, with conflicting reports over whether Poland was also denying airspace to Fico. Initial claims from the Serbian media outlet Novosti and regional sources said that both Poland and Lithuania had blocked his flight.
However, later in the day, Poland clarified that they had approved the overflight but remained “critical” of his trip. The conflicting messages leave the impression that some EU governments can’t even coordinate their own messaging, let alone forge a coherent foreign policy.
Fico, never one to mince words, called the Baltic states’ overflight denials “hysterical.” Speaking on the matter, he noted, “Just imagine where international relations are now.” His sentiment echoes growing frustration among Central and Eastern European leaders who seek to maintain open channels with all global powers—something Brussels seems intent on punishing.
Vučić, for his part, has remained firm despite mounting EU pressure. The Serbian leader previously promised to attend the Victory Day ceremonies and followed through, albeit reportedly without an official delegation, in order to shield Serbian officials from EU retribution.
His visit is also expected to include bilateral talks with Putin to discuss regional stability in the Balkans—an issue of far more substance than the shallow virtue-signaling coming from Vilnius and Riga.
The EU has already warned candidate states like Serbia to steer clear of Moscow, threatening vague “consequences” for those who defy the directive. Yet such posturing only exposes the EU’s own insecurities. That a continent once saved from Hitler’s rabid Nazism by the very soldiers being honored in Moscow today now seeks to erase or delegitimize that memory is a sad irony.
Even sadder is the fact that small, largely inconsequential states like Lithuania and Latvia now see fit to impose themselves on the diplomatic missions of sovereign nations for no other reason than to curry favor with Brussels.
As the West continues its descent into performative foreign policy and ideological purity tests, leaders like Vučić and Fico stand out not for their defiance, but for their adherence to principle—engaging where necessary, remembering history honestly, and refusing to bend the knee to the small-minded whims of bureaucrats and their junior enforcers in the Baltics.
Will more European leaders join them in choosing diplomacy over dogma?
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