Clad in a bulletproof vest, the editor of the British Telegraph reports from a Leposavić hill on a possible „Serbian invasion of Kosovo“

Izvor
KoSSev
-
Foto: KoSSev

Could Kosovo be the next Ukraine – with this question, the British Telegraph presented its report on Pristina’s fear of a possible attack by Vučić’s Serbia as Putin’s ally. The media outlet even dispatched its defense editor to the hills in the far north of Kosovo to determine the situation in the field.

„We came to Kosovo to establish whether this could be the next big conflict in Europe. I am standing here on a mountain ridge with the hills of Serbia behind me,“ said the editor of this British media outlet, Danielle Sheridan, wearing what appears to be a bulletproof camouflage vest and gloves, but with no helmet.

In a video published on the Twitter account of the British Telegraph, Sheridan talks about the „fears“ of the Kosovo prime minister due to the „anti-Albanian“ sentiment of the Serbian president, and the „close relationship“ of Aleksandar Vučić with Putin.

In the text shared on the website of this media, it is stated that Kosovo ramped up security “as fears grow that Serbia’s president Aleksander Vucic is planning an invasion aided by his ally Vladimir Putin.”

The text describes the scenes encountered by the Kosovo police as they begin a patrol on the „border with Serbia“:

“They load up the car with weaponry: AK-47s are strapped to the back of car seats, handguns dropped in the footwells, and drones and bulletproof vests stuffed in the Land Rover’s boot. This is now standard protocol on one of the most volatile frontiers on the European continent.”

“The Serbs can’t make a road we won’t find.”

The Deputy Commander of the Kosovo Police in the north, Veton Elshani, whom Sheridan refers to as „Commander Elshani“ in the text, spoke for this media.

“When people ask Elshani – what the situation is like, he simply shows them the preparations he takes for patrol. ‘You see the weapons?’ he said, before taking The Telegraph out to the border, ‘these are for police officers to carry. The situation is not good.’”

At the same time, Elshani boasts of his knowledge of the roads in the north of Kosovo.

“We know these roads better than anyone. The Serbs can’t make a road we won’t find,” he said.

According to the Telegraph, he identified 65 illegal roads, citing that all of them have been blocked with large ditches cut through the concrete, while further 10 roads are kept under constant surveillance, mainly via drones.

“When the blood is shed, then it’s a problem.”

Having a constant presence in the Serb-majority region sent a message to Belgrade that Kosovo was protecting its borders, Elshani said.“Banjska changed the game, put the game into another level because of the deaths. When the blood is shed, then it’s a problem.”

“Horseshoe shape”

This British media outlet then cited analysts who warned that “Kremlin propaganda is fuelling unrest in the north in a nation where 93 per cent are Albanian and 4 per cent are Serb.”

In the same text, they also made references to an interview of Kosovo PM, Albin Kurti, who warned the Telegraph that Vučić is “planning to invade.”

Moreover, Kurti also said Serbia had “built up forward operating bases around the border in a horseshoe shape to defend Belgrade and attack Kosovo”.

“Mr Vucic’s friendship with Vladimir Putin is well known, and Mr Kurti believes it is in the Russian leader’s interest for Serbia to invade Kosovo, as it would distract from his war in Ukraine.”

“Solidarity with Russia omnipresent in the north”

Kosovo PM also claims that Putin “has recruited Serbians to fight in his army against Ukraine.” The Telegraph further alleged that they determined that “solidarity with Russia was omnipresent” in the north of Kosovo.

“The letter ‘Z’ had been graffitied on to the sides of shops, cafes and local homes.”

Kurti also told them that this is “the pool from where they [Russia] will recruit future Wagner wannabe paramilitaries for Ukraine and the Balkans.”

On the other hand, as Telegraph testified from the field, Serbs have a completely different sentiment toward NATO, after spotting one road sign where someone had stencilled the words “F— You Nato”.

The Telegraph then proceeded to describe the situation in the north in the following manner:

“Some ethnic-Serbian residents from the north view anyone who crosses into the south as a traitor, betraying the unhealed wounds from the bloodshed of the 1990s.”

According to the same media, Kosovo won independence from Yugoslavia in a war that ended in 1999, and since then “it has played host to a small community of ethnic Serbs in the northern border region.”

“They can shoot us but they can’t scare us”

Finally, at the end of this defense report from Kosovo, the British expert on defense issues, as she was introduced, once again quotes „Commander Elshani“.

“It’s not a surprise Vucic wants to invade,” he said. “They can shoot us but they can’t scare us.”

The author of the text also confirmed that “Commander Elshani” and his men are in training for an attack.

“Commander“ Elshani is a deputy commander of the KP for the region north.

Ivanov: Suggesting that escalations amount to war is plain wrong

Helena Ivanov from the Henry Jackson Society Institute underlined that there is very low to no chance that a war could erupt in the Balkans as long as KFOR troops remain stationed in Kosovo.

“KFOR was and remains the guarantor of peace in this region,” Ivanov said in response to Telegraph’s writings.

“I do not understand why such a high-profile credible media outlet would air a story so completely misguided,” she tweeted, adding:

“Second, while we have seen substantial escalations in Kosovo lately, to suggest that those are amounting to war is plain wrong.”

She underlined that the Balkans “was and remains an incredibly complicated region,” urging anyone who wants to write about it ought to do it justice and provide insight into that complexity.

“Thus, if you want to do a story on Kosovo, I think you ought to focus on the normalisation talks, their failure and underlying causes thereof, and how this created a hostile environment in which functional co-existence becomes borderline impossible.“

“Instead, the latest rounds of escalation have been primarily caused by a complete failure to reach political solutions to key political questions primarily due to lack of willingness of respective governments and the EU’s inability to effectively moderate the normalisation talks,” she concluded.


Preuzimanje i objavljivanje tekstova sa portala KoSSev nije dozvoljeno bez navođenja izvora. Hvala na poštovanju etike novinarske profesije.