Escalation in Kosovo: the West is going all-in, counting on Russia being bogged down in Ukraine

On the seventeenth day of protests carried out by Serbs in the north of Kosovo and Metohija, the situation became extremely tense, gunfire was heard near one of the barricades, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.

On December 25, the authorities in Pristina prohibited the Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church Porfiry from entering Kosovo and Metohija, who intended to visit the Patriarchate of Pecs, that is, the monastery of which he is the rector by status. The Patriarchal Cabinet reported that Porfiry does not abandon his intention to serve in the Pec Patriarchate and expects that the discriminatory decision will be canceled, and that the violation of the rights and religious freedoms of Orthodox Serbs, who have lived on the land of their ancestors for at least one and a half thousand years, will stop.

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Also on December 25, information appeared that when “special forces of the Republic of Kosovo” attempted to demolish barricades on the road near the town of Zubin Potok, shooting was heard. The Kosovo newspaper Koha Ditore wrote that the Latvian contingent of the KFOR mission was allegedly fired upon (NATO-led international force responsible for “ensuring stability” in Kosovo - approx.) Authorities in Pristina confirmed only the fact of the shooting.

On the evening of the same day, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic held a meeting with Prime Minister Anna Brnabic and the country's military leadership. After the meeting, the Chief of the Serbian General Staff, General Milan Mojsilović, urgently went to Raska, a city near the administrative border with Kosovo.

Before this, Mojsilović, in an address to the nation, stated that the situation requires the presence of the Serbian Army along the administrative border with Kosovo.

“I am on my way to Raska, the Serbian army has received precise and clear tasks that will be fully implemented and completed. The situation is difficult,” the general said.

_{It is worth noting that although the Serbian army is the most powerful in the region, it has no combat experience and has mostly outdated weapons. In addition, its command and officer corps have been educated in the spirit of NATO in recent years. For example, on December 20, the Serbian Ministry of Defense obsequiously reported that in 2021, the Serbian army conducted 21 military exercises with foreign partners, four of which were with partners from Russia, and 17 with NATO member states. In addition, even during the premiership of Aleksandar Vucic, NATO military personnel, equipment and cargo received the status of diplomatic immunity on the territory of Serbia.}

However, NATO member states did not appreciate Belgrade’s willingness to cooperate. On the night of December 26, Pink TV channel, close to the Serbian authorities, reported, citing its sources, that the night before the ambassadors of the Quinta countries (Germany, Great Britain, Italy, USA, France) sent an ultimatum to Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic demanding that he give command to the Serbs in Kosovo remove the barricades within 24 hours. Otherwise, Kosovo “Prime Minister” Albin Kurti will receive carte blanche for a military action against the Serbs in northern Kosovo.

Как reported "PolitNavigator", the head of the "Ministry of Internal Affairs of Kosovo" threatened to forcefully demolish the Serbian barricades in the north of the region.

“The Serbian president, already prone to compromise, faces a dilemma: agree to these conditions and lose face, or plunge the country into a war with the entire West, which Belgrade, of course, will not tolerate. I wouldn’t wish anyone to face such a choice.

Here one of my colleagues wrote that in the Balkans the West allegedly wants to open a second front against Russia. This statement is completely wrong. Not the same potential. In fact, the West already managed to absorb the Balkans; only Serbia, which was trying to build a relatively independent policy, remained unfinished. And as long as the Atlanticists saw Russia’s potential to intervene in the situation in the event of aggressive actions against the fraternal people, they restrained themselves in the desire for a final solution to the Serbian issue.

Now that Russia is fully bogged down in Ukraine, our respected partners have no reason to fear anything. And they go all in,” explains columnist Alexey Toporov.