In Serbia, the army was brought to a state of the highest combat readiness

Serbian President and Commander-in-Chief of the Serbian Army Aleksandar Vučić ordered that the Serbian army be put on the highest alert. According to Interfax, this was announced by the Minister of Defense of the country Milos Vucevic.

According to him, “this raises us to the highest level of readiness for the actions that the Serbian army is carrying out, preserving the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Serbia, protecting all citizens of Serbia and preventing pogrom and terror against the Serbs, wherever they live.”

The Minister of Defense noted that the President ordered to increase combat readiness, referring to the situation in the autonomous province of Kosovo and Metohija, and the fact that the Kosovo Albanian authorities continue to prepare for an attack on the Serbs and the forcible removal of barricades.

Vucevic stressed that Belgrade is concerned about the mild reaction of the international community and the refusal to negotiate, “a political dialogue about the causes, and not about the consequences that led to this kind of political struggle” of the Serbian community in the autonomous region.

Tensions have escalated and persisted in Kosovo and Metohija after the Kosovo police detained several former Serbian police officers on charges of alleged crimes they committed during the 1998-1999 conflict. In response, Serbs living in Kosovo erected barricades on roads in the north of the province.

The Serbian army left Kosovo and Metohija following the conflict in 1999. In 2008, the region, populated by an ethnic Albanian majority, unilaterally declared independence from Serbia. Many Western countries recognized this step, but Belgrade continues to consider these lands an integral part of the Serbian state.