Journalists from the British Telegraph visited the north of Kosovo and wrote about increased security measures due to what they claim is fear that Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić is planning an invasion with the help of his ally Vladimir Putin.
Before the Kosovo police start patrolling the border with Serbia, they load their weapons: AK-47s are attached to the back of the seat, pistols to the legs, while the trunk of the Land Rover is filled with drones and bulletproof vests, writes the Telegraph.
And this, he says, is now standard protocol at one of the most unstable borders on the European continent.
The British media highlights the recent increase in tensions between the Serbian minority and the Albanian majority in Kosovo.
The fear of a new conflict especially grew in 2023 when a group of armed Serbs “invaded” the village of Banjska in the north and barricaded themselves in a monastery. Three of the 30 people suspected of being there were killed in a shootout while a Kosovo policeman lost life.
Since that day, Kosovo police have stepped up patrolling along the borders to find illegal routes used by Serbs to cross.
“We know these roads better than anyone. The Serbs can’t make a road that we won’t find,” said Commander Elshani as the patrol passed through the mountains.
The police have identified 65 illegal roads and all of them are blocked, 10 other roads are under constant surveillance, mostly by drones.
The permanent presence in the Serb-majority region sent a message to Belgrade that Kosovo is protecting its borders, Commander Elshani said.
“Banjska has changed the game. When blood is spilled, then that’s a problem,” said the policeman.
Analysts warn that the Kremlin’s propaganda is fueling unrest in the north of the country. The majority of Serbs in Kosovo still consider Belgrade, which has never recognized Kosovo’s independence, as their institutional center.
Kosovo police, after the Banjska case, discovered a large amount of weapons that the attackers had hidden in abandoned buildings around the northern villages.
Just a few weeks ago, they found five more rocket launchers, a sign of the scale of the planned attack.
In an interview with the Telegraph, Kosovo Prime Minister Aljbin Kurti warned that Serbian President Vučić was planning an invasion.
He said that Serbia built forward operating bases around the border in a “horseshoe shape” to “protect Belgrade and attack Kosovo”.
Vučić’s friendship with Vladimir Putin is well known, and Kurti believes that it is in the interest of the Russian leader for Serbia to invade Kosovo, because it would divert attention from his war in Ukraine.
The bridge in Mitrovica over the Ibar River was a “hot spot”, an informal divide between the northern border region of Kosovo and the ethnic Albanian south.
Things seem peaceful as pedestrians walk freely between the two sides, but there is a backstory. Some ethnic Serbs from the north see anyone who crosses to the south as a traitor.
Cars are still not allowed to cross the bridge, and two police Land Rovers are constantly present, one facing south and one facing north.
The police said that these measures are necessary to maintain stability in the area.
Traveling through the north of Kosovo, Telegraph journalists saw signs with the letter “Z” everywhere, a symbol of support for Russian forces on the Ukrainian battlefield.
“The north of Kosovo is the point from where Putin will recruit future members of paramilitary groups for operations in Ukraine and the Balkans,” Kurti said.
