Russian President Vladimir Putin is guest of honor at a military parade in Belgrade on Thursday to mark 70 years since the city's liberation by the Red Army, a visit loaded with symbolism as Serbia walks a tightrope between the Europe it wants to join and a big-power ally it cannot leave behind.
The United States and European Union are unlikely to welcome the sight of Putin taking the salute at a parade of more than 3,000 Serbian soldiers while NATO says Russian troops are fighting on the side of separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine.
The East-West split over Ukraine, recalling the Cold War, has exposed the balancing act Serbia faces, politically indebted to Russia over the breakaway region of Kosovo but seeing its economic future inside the EU.
The parade is Serbia's first in almost 30 years, commemorating how the Soviet army and Communist Yugoslav partisans drove Nazi German forces from the city. It will give Putin the chance to demonstrate the influence and reverence Russia still commands in parts of the Balkans, be it through gas supplies or notions of Slav brotherhood rooted in history, shared Orthodox Christianity and often common conservative values.
The military pomp will also play well for Putin at home, where the Russian economy has taken a hit from sanctions imposed by the West over Ukraine.
For Serbia, Russia's United Nations veto is the only thing standing in the way of its former Kosovo province joining the world body - a red line for Belgrade six years after the majority-Albanian territory declared independence with the support of the West.
That has put Serbia in an awkward spot, refusing to sign up to the Western sanctions despite EU pressure to align its foreign policy with the 28-nation bloc which it is negotiating to join.
EU membership remains a distant prospect but Belgrade generally follows pro-Western policies, notwithstanding its difficulties in joining the pressure on Putin.
"EU membership won't come on the agenda for another 10 years or so, and there's little that can speed that up or slow it down," journalist and political commentator Filip Svarm wrote in the Serbian weekly Vreme. "Whatever European and American policymakers ask for, the Serbian government carries out in the region, and that's all that's really important."
KOSOVO
In a gesture branded obsequious by critics, the main event of this year's anniversary falls on Thursday, four days before the traditional Liberation Day, to accommodate Putin as he heads to an EU-Asia summit in Milan.
Soviet forces and their partisan allies were still fighting their way into Belgrade 70 years ago on Thursday. The Nazis abandoned the city on Oct. 20, 1944, retreating across the River Sava.
The Yugoslav federation under Josip Broz Tito quickly split with Stalin, balancing itself between Cold War foes for the next four decades.
Under late strongman Slobodan Milosevic in the 1990s, Serbia aligned itself with Russia as Yugoslavia collapsed in war. Since Milosevic's overthrow in 2000, Serbs have gradually turned west, and the EU has become Serbia's biggest trade partner, donor and source of investment, outstripping Russia.
Serbia has softened its stance on Kosovo in return for the start of EU accession talks, and is seen increasingly by the West as a stabilizing factor in the region having exported war for a decade under Milosevic to Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo.
That said, Serbia, like much of Eastern Europe, depends on Russia for gas. It also wants to woo Russian orders for its agricultural produce and Russian investors to a host of run-down state enterprises, as well as expand a free trade agreement.
Russia's South Stream gas pipeline, which is due to pass through Serbia, will also come up; Belgrade promised to start construction in July, but has quietly held off due to EU legal objections rooted in the Ukraine crisis.
Putin will hold a speech at the parade, which will involve tanks, boats and a fly-past including a Russian aerobatic team. Despite the red-carpet treatment, Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said last week that Putin would "hear that Serbia is on the European path".
Timothy Ash, head of emerging markets research at Standard Bank, said the Russian leader was unlikely to object. "Rather, experience is that Russia appreciates having 'friendly' nations within the EU, which provides some leverage to try and influence broader EU policy toward Russia and the region."
