President of Serbia Tomislav Nikolic (retranslated): (Reads Executive Order) Pursuant to Article 112 (1)(7) of the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia and Article 12 of the Law on Decorations of the Republic of Serbia, I hereby issue this Executive Order awarding the Order for outstanding achievements in developing and strengthening peaceful cooperation and friendly ties between the Republic of Serbia and the Russian Federation and award the Order of the Republic of Serbia on a sash to Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation. Belgrade, February 22, 2013.
(In Russian) Dear brother Vladimir, the people of Serbia are proud that you bear the highest Serbian decoration. Thank you.
President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr President, friends,
First, I would like to thank you for this lofty award. I do not think I have done anything to deserve this order; I rather take it as a sign of Serbia’s respect and love for Russia, for the Russian people. I would like to assure you that Russia would always consider Serbia as our closest ally and family, just as we have done in the past.
Thank you for this high award and accept my assurances that I will do everything for the consistent development of relations between Serbia and Russia in the interests of our peoples, so they would contribute to the development of a unified Europe and so that our cooperation would help resolve all the issues, all the conflicts we have inherited from the past.
Thank you very much.