When is a donation not a donation?

That’s the question vexing some Serbs after the defence ministry published data last week that put the United States at the top of Serbia’s short list of military donors in 2018.

Perhaps caught out by the sudden media interest, the ministry issued a swift clarification: Orthodox ally Russia was, in fact, the more generous, it said.

The episode speaks volumes to the balancing act Serbia’s conservative-led government continues to pursue between the West and Russia, between its strategic ambition of European integration, its high-level cooperation with NATO and the need to keep Moscow close for political and diplomatic purposes.