During his meeting in Belgrade on Monday with Aleksei Pushkov, cairman of the Russian State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee, the Serbian president added that "sanctions cannot lead to resolving a crisis."

Nikolic voiced hope the EU and Russia "will soon overcome their disagreements and go back to the relations as they were before the Ukraine crisis."

Pushkov said he submitted a proposal to the Serbian parliament and the Russian State Duma to set up a joint inter-parliamentary commission.

He noted it was "necessary to raise the inter-parliamentary ties between Serbia and Russia to a higher level, because of exceptional closeness between the two countries and the importance Serbia has for Russia."

The Russian Federation has so far established such commissions with four countries only: China, Italy, France and India, Pushkov pointed out.