Vucic
FILE PHOTO: An emergency meeting of the National Security Council of Serbia under the leadership of President Vucic on the situation in Kosovo has begun.
The ongoing standoff in Kosovo bears an uncanny resemblance to the Donbass crisis, Russia's envoy to Belgrade Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko told Rossiya 24 TV channel on Monday.

"The whole situation, everything, including Pristina's attitude towards the Kosovo Serbs, resembles, although on a smaller scale, what has happened and is still happening in Ukraine," the diplomat said. The West is also treating the ethnic Albanian government in Kosovo the same way it has Kiev, he argued.

Comparing the Donbass crisis to tensions in Kosovo, the ambassador added that "Pristina's desire ... to take control over all of Kosovo, including the regions inhabited by Serbs, at all cost" is what "lies at the heart" of this standoff. Any further escalation would lead to more drastic consequences, Botsan-Kharchenko warned.

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© AFP
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic still seeks to get out of this spiral of tensions "through peaceful means" and avoid transforming it into a full-blown conflict, according to the envoy.

"Pristina openly ... bets on hard power, brute force," Botsan-Kharchenko added, which makes a peaceful resolution "extremely hard" to reach.

NATO seized Kosovo from Serbia in 1999, following the bombing of Serbia. The US and its allies continue to enable the ethnic Albanians in the province, the Russian ambassador has said recently, comparing it with their behavior towards Kiev. Botsan-Kharchenko specifically referred to former German chancellor Angela Merkel's admission that the Minsk agreements were intended to give Ukraine time to arm against Russia.

The current Kosovo government insists it can only discuss full recognition with Belgrade, something Serbia has continued to refuse. The most recent standoff comes amid a major deployment of ethnic Albanian police in ethnic Serb majority areas, just weeks after the EU persuaded Pristina to back down from a plan to ban Serbian license plates.

Belgrade has accused the West of ignoring the grievances of Kosovo Serbs and noticing them only "when they are on the barricades." Meanwhile, Vucic called on Serbs in the breakaway province on Sunday to "be calm and peaceful" as well as to refrain from any aggressive moves against EULEX and KFOR, the EU- and NATO-led missions stationed in Kosovo. "We will do everything to preserve peace and stability," he added at the time.

Russia says international law supports Serbia's position in breakaway province

Moscow is "alarmed" by the mounting tensions in Kosovo, which are the fault of "radical" ethnic Albanian authorities in the breakaway Serbian province and their Western sponsors, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Monday.

Authorities in Pristina have undertaken a "series of provocations" with the connivance of the US and the EU, using "ethnically motivated violence" to target the remaining Serbs in the province, Zakharova told reporters.
Zakharova
© Sputnik/Press Service of the Russian Foreign MinistryFILE PHOTO: Official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia Maria Zakharova.
Prime minister Albin Kurti is seeking to distract from a failed domestic policy by "playing with fire, spinning up Serbophobic hysteria" and escalating tensions" closely approaching an armed conflict," said Zakharova. Only the forbearance of local Serbs and the government in Belgrade is preventing things from sliding into open violence, she added.

"We stand in solidarity with the leadership of Serbia," Zakharova said, endorsing Belgrade's position that the Kosovo Albanians and the West "cynically ignore the fundamental UN Security Council Resolution 1244, the Brussels and Washington agreements."

The UN resolution provided for a NATO presence in the province after the bombing of Serbia in 1999, while the 2013 Brussels agreement envisioned autonomy for the remaining ethnic Serbs.

UNSCR 1244 clearly provides for Serbia to send its security forces into the province, and "not even apologists for the 'rules-based order' can deny this," Zakharova added. She specifically called out German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock's recent statement that such a deployment would be "totally unacceptable," which Serbia has slammed as "absurd."

"We will continue to help Belgrade defend legitimate national interests with regard to Kosovo based on UNSCR 1244, which remains in force without any exceptions."

Instead of pressuring the ethnic Albanians to abide by the signed agreements, the US and the EU have "blatantly sabotaged" the Brussels document, while preferring the "vicious practice" of bullying and blaming the Kosovo Serbs, Zakharova noted.

The relative peace lasted less than two weeks, however, as ethnic Albanian police deployed in force in Serb-majority areas, harassing a kindergarten and a family winery.