According to Bloomberg, on 11 November, Serbian President Vucic, in an interview with the news website "Informer.rs", refused to avoid the sanctions by nationalizing the Serbian Petroleum Industry Company (NIS), saying the practice was "unacceptable".

The major shareholder of Serbian Petroleum Industry Company is a Russian company, and the Serbian government holds a small share. Bloomberg said that U.S. sanctions against Serbian oil industry companies came into full effect earlier this month.

Vucic revealed in an interview that the United States had asked him to nationalize the company to circumvent sanctions. "I told them,'This is unacceptable to me.'" "We don't like to embezzle other people's funds and property," Vucic said.

According to Agence France-Presse previously reported, regarding the US sanctions against the Serbian Petroleum Industry Company, Vucic said in a speech on the 9th that this was "bad news" for Serbia and "had an extremely serious impact on our entire country."