Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has warned that the country’s only oil refinery will shut down in four days if the United States does not lift sanctions that were imposed over its majority Russian ownership in connection with the Ukraine war.

Vucic said on Tuesday that he would give Russia’s Gazprom and Gazprom Neft, which together own 56.2 percent of the Petroleum Industry of Serbia (NIS) oil company, 50 days to sell their stake or the Serbian state would take over operations and make an offer to buy them out.

For Vucic, who has close ties to Moscow, the option of seizing a Russian asset may be unpalatable, but he said that his country had been left in an “increasingly difficult position” with “no easy solutions” as Washington and the Kremlin clashed.

The US sanctions , which hit

See Full Page