NATO Announces Military Drills in Kosovo
as Western Military Boosts Presence in Province
US troops arrive in Kosovo.
RT News
(December 18, 2022) — NATO’s mission in Kosovo announced on Sunday that it will hold “tactical” military exercises in the coming days. The announcement came amid tensions between Kosovo’s Western-backed government and the province’s Serbian minority.
Kosovo Force (KFOR) “will conduct a regular military exercise near its base in Novo Selo,” the mission announced via its Twitter account. “The exercise aims to train KFOR units to guarantee freedom of movement in a crisis response situation & it will consist [of] a series of tactical simulations & logistic activities.”
“Freedom of movement” may be a reference to the removal of barricades, which Kosovo’s Serb minority erected around their communities earlier this month to protect against incursion by the majority-Albanian province’s security forces.
The barricades went up after Kosovo police arrested a Serb officer last week, accusing him of attacking one of their patrols.
As tensions between Pristina and Belgrade flared, ethnic Albanian officials replaced their Serbian counterparts in North Mitrovica, the largest Serb-majority municipality in the north of Kosovo. Previously, all Serb List party members, who had enjoyed a landslide election victory, resigned from their posts in protest at Pristina’s now-defunct plan to outlaw Serbian license plates in Kosovo.
On Thursday, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic asked for KFOR’s permission to deploy up to 1,000 Serbian troops and police officers in Kosovo, as it is entitled to do under UN Security Council Resolution 1244.
This resolution, which ended NATO’s bombing campaign on former Yugoslavia in 1999, allows Belgrade to send its military and police personnel to Kosovo in certain situations, including if the “peaceful and normal life” of its population there is threatened.
While KFOR has yet to respond to Vucic’s request, it told US state media on Friday that it is “currently evaluating” the proposal. Meanwhile, KFOR announced an expansion of its own deployment in northern Kosovo on Saturday.
Kosovo, which unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in 2008, has been occupied by NATO forces since 1999.
Read More
“Serbia Invokes UN Resolution on Kosovo,” RT News.
US Accused of Sponsoring Attacks Inside Russia:
Moscow Has Data Confirming US/Poland Involvement in Terror Attacks
Valentyn Ogirenko / Reuters & TASS Russian News Agency
MOSCOW (December 16, 2022) — According to the specialists’ assessments, a number of facts “confirm the direct involvement of the US and Poland in the massive military-logistical support of the Kiev regime, in preparation and implementation of joint terror attacks on the Russian Federation territory.
Data from intercepted drones confirm the involvement of the US and Poland in preparation of terror attacks on the Russian territory, a source in Russian security agencies told TASS Friday.
“Relevant agencies of the Russian Federation analyzed electronic components of the intercepted unmanned aerial vehicles, used by Ukraine for attacks on Russian infrastructure objects — in particular, in Sevastopol, in Crimea, in Kursk, Belgorod and Voronezh Regions,” the agency said.
According to the specialists’ assessments, a number of facts “confirm the direct involvement of the US and Poland in the massive military-logistical support of the Kiev regime, in preparation and implementation of joint terror attacks on the Russian Federation territory.”
The agency noted that “the avionics and drone control stations were produced by US’ Spektreworks, a company that performed the initial tuning and check of the drones at the Scottsdale airport in Arizona.”
In addition, the relevant agencies pointed out that “the final assembly and flight trials of these drones were carried out on the Polish territory, near the Rzeszow airport, used by the US and NATO as the main supply node for Ukrainian armed forces.”
“The installation of payload, flight mission and the launch itself were carried out near Odessa and Krivoy Rog,” the statement says.
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