Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova’s reply to a media question about the escalation in Kosovo

Question: What can you say about the latest escalation of tensions in Kosovo?

Maria Zakharova: We are alarmed over the new escalation in Serbia. We are following the developments around the clock – especially after a number of provocations made by “the authorities” in Pristina with the connivance of the US and the EU. Pristina has adopted a policy of toughening reprisals against Serbs in Kosovo and using direct ethnically motivated violence.

The goal of these provocations is clear – to establish full control over the non-Albanian northern Kosovo provinces. Only restraint of the Kosovo Serbs, which rely on Belgrade’s support, makes it possible to avoid major incidents and prevent the situation from sliding into open confrontation with deplorable consequences.

We would like to emphasise that “Prime Minister” Albin Kurti and other Kosovar leaders and their Western patrons, primarily Washington, are fully responsible for the political deterioration in Kosovo and endangered security.

This is yet another major failure of the EU’s mediation in the stalled Belgrade-Pristina dialogue. The last illusions about the EU’s ability to bring to reason the Kosovar Albanian leaders have been dispelled. They are openly brushing away any advice and are actually dictating their own rules to everyone else. Brussels’ inability and reluctance to encourage them to fulfil the adopted agreements and the pernicious practice of stamping dubious compromises on Kosovo at Serbia’s expense are becoming increasingly obvious. The EU bureaucrats and the most zealous European leaders find it much more convenient to blame all failures on Serbs rather than deal with Pristina radicals.

We have repeatedly drawn the attention of the US and EU to the destructive course of the Pristina leaders. Against the backdrop of the failed domestic policy, they are ready to play with fire, fanning Serbophobic hysteria, engage in de facto war preparations and escalate tensions up to an armed conflict. It is necessary to curtail resolutely these subversive activities and return the Kosovars to the Brussels agreements, primarily to their key commitment – to establish a Community of Serb Municipalities in Kosovo. They have impudently sabotaged it for almost a decade now.

We stand in solidary with the Serbian leaders that justifiably say it is pointless to continue the talks in a situation where the Kosovo Albanians and the US-led Western players are cynically ignoring the fundamental UN Security Council Resolution 1244, the Brussels and Washington agreements and other agreements. Only full commitment to the implementation of the decisions recorded on paper may create hope for effective dialogue with acceptable results. Belgrade officials have already given a scathing rebuke to the absurd Western attacks on the international legal foundations of the Kosovo settlement and Western attempts to shift the blame to the Serbs.

The attempts to devalue the legal foundations of the settlement, like a statement by German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, whereby she called the afore-mentioned resolution “unacceptable,” are obviously harmful and provoke chaos in Kosovo affairs. This UN document gives Belgrade an opportunity to deploy into the territory up to a thousand police and military for ensuring order and protecting compatriots. Nobody, including even the advocates of the rules-based order, can deny this.

We will continue helping Belgrade to uphold its lawful national interests in Kosovo with reliance on the afore-mentioned resolution. It continues to be valid without any exemptions and offers a real chance to work out a balanced, fair solution to the Kosovo problem in terms of international law.