Serbia: Army on high alert to protect Serbs in Kosovo
Serbian officials announced this week that the national army was placed on high alert, following tensions at the border with breakaway Kosovo reaching boiling point and roadblocks set up by the Serb minority lives within Kosovo, which it does not recognize as a legitimate state.
After weeks of clashes, sometimes even heatedly, between Serb protesters and Kosovar police, Serbia said on Monday that its forces had been put into a "full state of combat readiness" after President Aleksandar Vučić ordered “take all measures to protect the Serbian people in Kosovo”..
“The President of Serbia… has ordered the Serbian army to be at the highest level of combat readiness, i.e. at the level of the use of armed force,” announced Serbian Defense Minister Milos Vucevic about raising the level of alert.
The president also ordered the strengthening of a special Serbian security response unit, which will bring thousands of elite troops to positions near the border with the region.
In response, Kosovo authorities closed the largest border crossing on Wednesday. Serbian protesters were already blockading it, even with large trucks, leaving only three entry points open between the two sides. Some entry points have been blocked since early December.
As a result, thousands of Kosovars working elsewhere in Europe have been unable to return home and are stranded at the border. On the other hand, inside northern Kosovo, there are an estimated 50,000 ethnic Serbs who say they are being persecuted by the authorities in Pristina, including attempts to impose them on vehicle registration plates and Kosovo state documents. Serbs reportedly on the Serbian side they helped protesters on the Kosovar side of the border set up checkpoints, effectively preventing the Kosovo Border Police from establishing control.
The catalyst for this latest flare-up in border tensions began earlier this month, with Kosovo's arrest of popular Serbian ex-policeman Dejan Pantic. Kosovo accused the former Serbian policeman, now in prison, of "committing terrorist acts and attacking the constitutional order", infuriating the ethnic Serb population.
Meanwhile, as in many geopolitical points in Eastern Europe and the Balkans, allegations have been made of destabilization attempts by Russia, given its historic support for Belgrade:
Kosovo's interior minister accused Serbia, under the influence of Russia, of trying to destabilize his country through protests.
Serbia denies wanting to destabilize its neighbor and says it only wants to protect the Serb minority who live in what is now Kosovar territory, but who are not recognized by Belgrade as an independent state, in accordance with the peace treaty concluded with NATO.
During the Serbian National Security Council held two weeks ago, President Vucic said he would consider the request to send national forces to Kosovo to protect the Serb minority. While unlikely, such a confrontation would inevitably spark war. In the same way, Kosovo's repressive actions could further ignite spirits, making the conflict ever closer.
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The article Serbia: army on maximum alert to protect Serbs in Kosovo comes from Scenari Economici .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/serbia-esercito-in-massima-allerta-per-proteggere-i-serbi-nel-kosovo/ on Wed, 28 Dec 2022 16:53:37 +0000.