Two diplomats of the Russian Embassy in Serbia left Kosovo. About this in your Telegram channel wrote the official representative of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Maria Zakharova.
“As soon as the staff of the Pristina Chancellery of the Russian Embassy in Serbia left the territory of Kosovo, a new provocation was immediately organized – disinformation injections were carried out, the purpose of which was to question Russia’s adherence to UN Security Council Resolution 1244,” she said.
Zakharova accused the Kosovo authorities of provocative activities against Russian diplomats. ” She also rejected “any insinuations about an alleged change in the Russian position on the non-recognition of the self-proclaimed republic.”
On October 22, Kosovo President Viosa Osmani-Sadriu announced persona non grata two Russian diplomats from the branch of the Serbian Embassy in Pristina. According to her, the Russians carried out in Kosovo “harmful activities that affected national security and constitutional order.” “We will continue to work closely with our American and European allies to prevent an attempt to make Kosovo and our region a victim of the destabilizing ambitions of the Russian Federation,” she also promised.
Later, Moscow replied that the actions of the Kosovo authorities in relation to Russian diplomats do not entail legal consequences, since they are accredited with the UN Mission in the Serbian region. On Smolenskaya Square, they also called on the UN Mission to ensure the safety of the staff of the Russian Chancellery in Pristina within the framework of its powers.
The Russian Embassy in Serbia also stated that the decisions of the government of the self-proclaimed Kosovo have no legal force. “We do not recognize the“ independence ”of Kosovo, and, accordingly, the regional“ government ”and other“ structures ”. For us, no “decisions” of Pristina have legal force, “the Russian diplomatic mission said.
On September 27, it became known that a group of 15 Albanians attacked Serbs with knives and bottles in the southern part of the Kosovar city of Kosovska Mitrovica. Before that, Serbian President Aleksandr Vucic said that Belgrade would take action if “the pogrom of our [сербского] population ”in Kosovo.
On the morning of September 20, Kosovo police and special forces, under the cover of snipers, occupied the Yarine and Brnjak border crossings in northern Kosovo. At the same time, Pristina issued a decree according to which all cars entering the self-proclaimed republic must change their license plates to Kosovo ones. Almost immediately, peaceful protests of Serbs gathered at the border crossings. In response, Kosovo’s special forces used tear gas, but failed to completely disperse the demonstrators.
The Republic of Kosovo is a partially recognized state on the Balkan Peninsula. It is mainly inhabited by ethnic Albanians, but there is also a Serb population. Serbia considers the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija – the so-called region in the Serbian constitution – part of its territory, the local authorities declared independence in 2008.
According to the latest data, the republic was recognized by about a hundred countries, including 22 of the 27 member states of the European Union. Meanwhile, Kosovo is not a member of the UN. Russia does not recognize the independence of Kosovo, claiming that the basis of the Kosovo settlement is the UN Security Council Resolution No. 1244. This 1999 document authorized an international civil and military presence in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and established the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). This happened after Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic agreed to the terms proposed by Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari and Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, including the withdrawal of all Yugoslav state forces from Kosovo.
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