FOR CAN (Kosovo) – Seven days after the first police cars were set on fire, the Serbian protest has taken on the aspect of a nationalist feast.
Near the barbed wire that packs the empty Zvecan Town Hall they set up red awnings from outchairs and chests, plastic tables and odorosa bottles plum with plum. The boy who works behind a botched DJ set blares patriotic hymns, the middle-aged ladies smoke next to the mural of Ratko Mladic, the executioner of Srebrenica, the old men of Zvecan are waiting to figure out who, among them, is the prime minister Kosovar Albin Kurti, will yield first. Where are the hooded men who attacked the Alpine troops of the KFOR contingent last Monday? Where are the Molotov cocktails hidden?
The dispute in the heart of the Balkans: twenty-four years on the brink of a new conflict
by Fabio Tonacci
It is not these people, angry with the Albanians as much as with the Serbian List politicians remotely controlled by Belgrade, who have shot at three NATO soldiers. They are not the ones who dropped paper bombs filled with pieces of iron. The grimmest faces are gone, but they aren’t really gone. They stay away, they watch. Just as the suspicion remains in the air that Russia is not only an observer interested in destabilization, but has infiltrated the ground in Kosovo.
Kurti mentioned names and surnames of what he calls, without nuances, “fascist militia”. In the extraordinary session of the Parliament, during which he was attacked by the opposition for the intransigent line that is irritating the United States and its European allies (the special envoys of the EU and the United States will be on a mission to Belgrade and Pristina on 5 and 6 June), the prime minister summoned thirty-three people.
Kosovo, Prime Minister Kurti’s gamble: the confrontation with Belgrade puts relations with Europe at risk
by our correspondent Fabio Tonacci
“They are the main promoters of the riots in the North, organized by an illegal formation called ‘Civic Defence’ together with the former Kosovar Serb policemen who had resigned”. Last November, the first to take off his uniform was Aleksandar Filipovicformer Chief Commissioner of the Northern Region, a gesture earned him the Medal of Valor pinned to his chest by the Serbian President Alexandar Vucic in person. “Filipovic is at the head of the hooded phalanx,” said Kurti, who has seen and reviewed footage of Monday’s clashes. “Filipovic also hit a Serbian in Leposavic”.
Not all those who took to the streets of the three municipalities with a Serbian majority to protest against the inauguration of the mayors of Albanian ethnicity (Zvecan, Zubin Potok and Leposavic) have the coat of arms of Kosovo in their passports: a video captures Dragan Smigic, policeman on duty in Rudare in Serbia, as he throws a truncheon at the shield tortoise of the KFOR military. He is Serbian Sinisha Jevetic, a veteran of the Belgrade army at the time of Milosevic, arrested on the border while trying to reach Zvecan. And, if what the Kosovar Minister of Internal Affairs claims is not a mistake, the Russians are also moving around here.
NATO increases forces in Kosovo, Stoltenberg: “700 more agents in the North”
edited by the Foreign editorial staff
In an interview with Repubblica the minister Jelal Svechla back to talk about the Wagner Brigade, the mercenaries loyal to Vladimir Putin already deployed in Ukraine and Africa. “Wagner has not sent soldiers to northern Kosovo this time, but according to elements collected by our intelligence they have sent their representatives. They are among the Serbian criminal fringes”.
Wagnerians who would have the task of sending a signal of proximity to the rioters and, potentially, advising them on urban guerrilla tactics. The presence of Russian militiamen in the Balkans is a difficult and debated topic: the Serbs strongly deny it, while the Albanians consider it entirely consistent with Moscow’s hegemonic plan.
Kosovo, today the Serbs are back on the streets. US pressure on Pristina: “Caution”
by Fabio Tonacci
For the moment we are dealing with intelligence information: no videos or photos documenting its operations in Kosovo have been published. Nor do the two young men who were seen wearing Wagner T-shirts in Leposavic feel anything. “They are not mercenaries, they are two locals, we know them”, says the Kosovar minister.
Last Monday in Zvecan there were also the hooligans. “Ultras of the Red Star of Belgrade”, specified Kurti. One group with covered faces wore the same type of cap as Great Belivuk, the boss of a Serbian gang. “It’s not true, there are only local people here, such as Russians? What do you think?”, they get nervous under the umbrellas of the garrison. But today is the festival of nationalism, grappa is drunk, there are women and the elderly, there is music. When the order to wreak havoc comes, those others will return.