BELGRADE, December 21. /TASS/. The West is deliberately disseminating fakes about a "Russian trail" in the conflict in Kosovo and Metohija to gloss over its one-sided approach to the situation, Russian Ambassador to Serbia Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko said on Tuesday.
"The West is set to support Pristina. And it will continue to support it, I am sure. So, it is disseminating ungrounded fakes about the ‘Russian trail’ to disguise its one-sided anti-Serb approach. Who are these fakes meant for? Serbian citizens understand the reasons for tensions perfectly well," the press service of the Russian embassy quoted him as saying.
"The situation in Kosovo is predictably remaining on the edge of a conflict. Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic has characterized the situation absolutely clearly. And what is to be done with [US Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs Gabriel] Escobar’s promises that everything will be normalized right now? <…> And German Ambassador Anke Konrad has joined the chorus of distortions of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244, claiming to be a supreme interpreter of the Security Council’s resolutions. She is offering the Serbs a magic remedy - to forget resolution 1244, the Brussels agreements and join the anti-Russian sanctions. And a path to the ‘bright democratic future’ will be opened for them right tomorrow. As simple as that!" he said.
"The practice of free interpretation of international documents, to a certain extent, stems from the negative experience of settling the Yugoslav crisis. <…> The West keeps on repeating the same mistakes over and over again, but the people in the Balkan countries are suffering," the Russian diplomat stressed.
The situation in Kosovo was aggravated dramatically on December 6, when the Kosovo police along with EULEX (European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo) patrols began to seize premises housing electoral commissions in northern Kosovo and Metohija. Local Serbs repelled the Kosovars, who fled across the Ibar River. Two days later, on December 8, around 350 Kosovo policemen in armored cars intruded into the Serb-inhabited northern Kosovo and blocked the northern part of Kosovska Mitrovica. On December 10, the Kosovo police detained Dejan Pantic, a former Serbian policeman, on dubious charges. In response, the Serb population erected barricades along a highway in several locations and took to the streets in protest.