paid a visit to Putin in October 2000. In January 2008, a major deal was struck between Moscow and Belgrade that by the end of the year transferred 51 percent of Serbia's oil and gas company Naftna Industrija Srbije (NIS) to Russia's Gazprom Neft (a subsidiary of Gazprom) in exchange for 400 million Euros and 550 mln Euros of investments; later Gazprom increased its stake in NIS to 56,5 percent. In April 2012, Ivica Dačić, then Deputy Prime Minister of Serbia and the Minister of Internal Affairs of Serbia, and Vladimir Puchkov, Deputy Minister of Emergency Situations of Russia, opened the Russian-Serbian Humanitarian Center in Niš, an intergovernmental nonprofit organization. While Serbia has intensive military cooperation with NATO (Serbia's military-to-military cooperation with the U.S. being much bigger than with Russia) and in early 2016 the Serbian parliament ratified an agreement that granted NATO staff freedom of movement in the Serbian territory and diplomatic immunity, the Serbian government has refused to grant similar status to the Russian-Serbian Humanitarian Center in Niš. The visit to Russia by Serbia's president Aleksandar Vučić in December 2017 was hailed by Politika as a symbolic ending of ″decades of stagnation in relations″. In November 2019 Serbian security services revealed activities of Russian intelligence operatives who were meeting and passing money to Serbian army officials. Serbia did not impose sanctions on Russia following the crisis in Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea in 2014. On 25 February 2022, in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Vučić stated that while Serbia felt it was wrong to violate the territorial integrity of Ukraine, it also felt that it was not in Serbia's interest to impose sanctions against Russia. On 11 March 2022, the People's Patrol, a far-right anti-immigrant and vigilante group, held a rally in support of Russia in Belgrade, attended by thousands of pro-Russia Serbs. On 21 March, a protest against Russia's invasion of Ukraine took place in the Serbian capital. It was the second reported pro-Ukraine demonstration since the start of the war, with the first one organised by peace activists and Russians living in Serbia. In the following month, more demonstrations in support of Ukraine were held. Pro-Ukraine demonstrations have attracted smaller numbers of participants than that of ones in support of the invasion. In March 2022, Serbia voted in favour of the UN General Assembly resolution condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine. In April, Serbia