MOSCOW, April 28 /TASS/. Serbia expects to receive a shipment of Mi-17B-5 military transport helicopters from Russia soon, Serbian Defense Minister Zoran Djordjevic said in an exclusive interview with TASS.

"The Serbian army is trying to obtain modern hi-tech models of weapons and military hardware that will act as a considerable deterrence factor and will be able to give a reliable response if it is necessary to repel an aggression and defend our national interests," the Serbian minister emphasized.

At the same time, Djordjevic noted that the Serbian army tried to preserve the maximum level of operational and functional capacities of the combat hardware, which it has at its disposal. "A considerable part of models of weapons and military hardware are either made in Russia or [the former] Soviet Union," Djordjevic said.