BELGRADE, August 14. /TASS/. The Serbian government should have expelled Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) correspondent Michael Martens for what he said about the killing of Russians, founder of Serbia’s Movement of Socialists and former Prime Minister Aleksandar Vulin said.

"The Serbian government should have expelled Martens from Serbia. This is the only appropriate response to the hatred he expressed and repeatedly voiced. Belgrade is a city where Germans killed people during the two world wars, whilst Russians fought side by side with Serbs for Serbia’s freedom during those wars. That is why such insulting words against both Russians and Serbs must not have been uttered in Belgrade, and now that this took place, they should be punished. The Serbian government is obliged, first and foremost to itself, and then to Russia, to expel Martens from Serbia," he told TASS.

At a press conference by Vladimir Zelensky and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic in Belgrade on August 8, Martens asked what European countries could do to "help kill more Russians." An online petition was subsequently launched calling for the journalist to be fired. On August 13, Serbia’s Ministry of Information and Telecommunications condemned Martens’ pronouncements, calling them an attempt to damage relations between Belgrade and Moscow. Later, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Russia would like to hear Serbia’s reaction to his words.