Niš – Russian (… and Chinese) Outpost in the Balkans

A Humanitarian Center or a Spy Base?

Serbia is not a NATO member state, but for 23 years it has been striving for EU membership. For 13 years, a Russian-Serbian Humanitarian Center has existed in Niš, the third largest city in Serbia. Western NGOs have been claiming from the very beginning that it is a Russian intelligence base in Serbia – country, surrounded by NATO member states: Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Montenegro. According to media reports, from the territory of the Russian-Serbian Humanitarian Center in Niš, the Russians eavesdrop on and monitor American military facilities in the Balkans.

The humanitarian center, which is located next to the Constantine the Great airport in Niš, is jointly managed by the Serbian and Russian governments. The Russian partner in the base is the Ministry of Emergency Situations, a paramilitary agency whose activities include combating disasters and accidents, but which is also a convenient cover for Russian special services. The center in Nis, established at the initiative of Sergei Shoigu, is a member of the International Civil Defense Organization (ICDO) and has the right to operate in neighboring countries. The center currently employs 25 Russian specialists. The center is technically equipped with a Mi-26 cargo helicopter (the largest serially produced helicopter), a Beriev Be-200 aircraft and drones.

The United States and parts of the EU have expressed concern that the center could function as a cover for Russian intelligence or have military functions. EU officials have warned that if Serbia becomes an EU member, as it wishes, it will have to join the union’s disaster relief programs and give up the Russian instructors who train Serbian firefighters and sappers.

NATO officials have not officially expressed any particular concern about the “Russian spy base” in its current form, but they are firmly opposed to the aspirations of the Russian-Serbian Humanitarian Center to receive diplomatic status. This would mean that Russia would receive an official military presence in Serbia and Russian citizens would be able to work without sufficient control and customs checks. An option has also been discussed for the center’s employees to have an “administrative and technical” status, similar to embassy staff, but not in the full sense of diplomatic immunity.

Ivica Dačić, who signed the founding agreement for the humanitarian center with Russia (then interior minister) in 2012, has mentioned that pressure from the “West” (especially the United States) regarding the center’s status exists because the Americans perceive the granting of special status as a potential risk. The request for diplomatic status is a subject of politicization, but Belgrade has not yet given in to Russia’s demands. Moreover, information was recently “leaked” on Serbian social networks that Belgrade had prepared a list of Russian diplomats who would be declared persona non grata, including the assistant to the Russian military attaché in Belgrade.

So far, Western and regional critics of the Russian-Serbian Humanitarian Center have not presented evidence of its espionage activities, except for its suspicious proximity – about 100 km – to the American military base Bondsteel in Kosovo. The EU cannot sanction it, since there are no such facilities on the territory of the Union.

In reality, the Niš center has not developed over the years according to the original plan – to become a full-fledged international structure providing assistance and support for an emergency humanitarian response to all interested countries in the Balkan region. In 2022, after the start of the war in Ukraine, there was unofficial talk that the Serbian authorities were planning to change the status of the Niš center, after which they would close it permanently, but no official confirmation was received. In July of this year, the center demonstrated its purpose in reality when the Serbian authorities asked it for help in extinguishing the summer fires in Niš, Aleksinac and Kuršumlja. The center expanded this year with another training ground.

However, the future of the center remains unclear. For now, it is like an uncomfortable Russian pebble in Europe’s shoe. Niš has long been one of the centers of Russian activities in Serbia. The founder and director of the Bulgarian Atlantic Club, Dr. Solomon Passy, ​​a former foreign minister of Bulgaria, is outraged that it is “insane” for Serbia and the EU to play at opening and closing negotiation chapters “if they (the Russians) have a spy base in Niš, 120 kilometers west of Bulgaria.”

Belgrade is trying to strike a balance: on the one hand, it is maintaining good relations with Russia and the functioning of the center, on the other – it is not granting diplomatic status, thereby signaling that it does not want to provide the Russians with full control over sensitive sites.

A nerve center of the Chinese geoeconomic corridor in Europe

Niš and its airport, used by the Russians for humanitarian and rescue operations, remain in the sights of NATO and the EU. But Western capitals should be more concerned about Chinese expansion in the southern Serbian city. In June 2025, the Serbian Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure signed a memorandum of understanding with the Chinese company “China Shandong International Economic and Technical Cooperation Group Ltd” for the second phase of the expansion and modernization of Constantine the Great Airport in Niš. The commercial contract was also published in August. The selection of the Chinese company is not through a public procurement or competition, but on the basis of an Agreement on Economic and Technical Cooperation in the Field of Infrastructure between the Government of the Republic of Serbia and the Government of the People’s Republic of China.

Over the past two years, Niš Airport, Serbia’s second largest, has handled around 400,000 passengers annually. The airport directly serves 14 cities in 10 countries, including Belgrade and Vienna, which account for a significant share of arrivals. In 2025, the airport received a new passenger flight connection from Wizz Air, as well as its first cargo route to China. In November, record quantities of Chinese goods were transported from the Chinese airport in Urumqi (Xinjiang) to Niš, exceeding even the peak in 2017. The new Serbian-Chinese project, for which a special working group was established in Serbia in September 2025, will enable the handling of larger aircraft and an increase in the number of destinations, especially in Europe and Asia. According to the project, the airport terminal will be expanded, new access roads and engineering networks will be built. The airport’s modernization and expansion will allow for greater throughput, but also, more importantly, it will establish itself as a regional transport hub and part of a corridor providing access for Chinese goods to the heart of Europe.

The participation of the Chinese company, which is one of dozens of divisions of the state-owned Chinese giant Shandong Hi-Speed ​​Group, indicates an influx of foreign investment and technological partnership that could stimulate further infrastructure projects in China’s infrastructure network, which is slowly expanding in the Balkans.

China’s strategic plan connects Niš airport to the Belgrade-Budapest high-speed railway. The Serbian section, 183 kilometers long, is built to European standards, but with money and technology from China. This is the first such project by Chinese companies in Europe and, not coincidentally, in Serbia.

China’s strategy is turning Serbia into a point where Chinese loans, construction companies, and long-term interests converge, making the country a key node of the Belt and Road Initiative in Southeast Europe.

The list of Chinese projects in Serbia also includes numerous highways and tunnels. Companies such as China Road and Bridge Corporation and the aforementioned Shandong High-Speed ​​Group are building the Lajkovac-Valevo road, as well as the €606 million Fruška Gora tunnel, the longest in the country. These are projects that have been waiting for decades for a local investor or a Western loan, but neither has happened.

That’s why the modernization of Niš airport is more than a local project. It is part of a new geoeconomic route that connects China with Europe.

With China, everything is moving faster in the Balkans. While the EU is still searching for a common strategy, China is signing contracts and memoranda, pouring money and concrete, building highways and terminals.

Competition or coordination between Moscow and Beijing?

Both China and Russia pay disproportionate attention to Serbia compared to the rest of Europe. Although Russia’s attention to the Constantine the Great airport in Niš is mainly driven by security interests, while China’s interest is mainly commercial, the intertwining of these interests is raising eyebrows in some European capitals and Washington, and is a serious cause for concern. It is not known whether there is coordination between Beijing and Moscow regarding the Niš airport, but the Russian presence in the city has certainly served as an additional motivation for Chinese interest. Moreover, it is not without significance for both countries that the airport in question houses Serbian air force and air defense bases.

In the Balkans, Chinese influence is growing, but Beijing is avoiding direct competition with Moscow’s interests. In the case of Niš airport, the interests of both countries complement each other. China’s modernization and expansion of the airport also benefits Russian activities. And the Sino-Russian presence in the city is likely to repel potential Western investors.

The expansion campaigns of Russia and China in the Balkans, implemented in different ways, are in tandem and have coincident goals: creating a bridgehead in the weak links of the European integration project, weakening ties with European partners, undermining American influence. For now, the two great powers are avoiding competing projects and undermining each other’s initiatives.

When the Chinese side begins real work on the modernization of the Niš airport, it will necessarily look for opportunities to ensure the security of Chinese assets abroad (companies, workers, facilities). Then the neighborhood with the Russian “saviors” in Niš may prove beneficial.

Some carefully dosed cooperation between Russia and China in Serbia and the Balkans is not impossible. Due to the US sanctions policy, Russia’s influence in the Serbian energy sector is drastically shrinking. Therefore, it is not excluded that China will trade its own growing economic influence in the region in the context of strengthening the partnership with Russia. China can use its influence to support or open a space for Russian policy in the Balkans, without entering into direct antagonism with US and NATO interests in the region.