BELGRADE, December 20. /TASS/. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has asked Stuart Munsch, the commander of Allied Joint Force Command in Naples, to provide NATO protection to the Serb population in Kosovo and Metohija.

"It was good talking to Admiral Munsch. I asked NATO to defend our people in KiM and thanked for the understanding of Serbia’s policy of neutrality," the president said on Instagram (banned in Russia as it’s owned by Meta Corporation, which is designated as extremist in Russia) on Tuesday after meeting with the admiral.

The situation in Kosovo deteriorated sharply on December 6, when the special forces of the unrecognized territory, accompanied by patrols of the European Union Mission in Kosovo (EULEX), began to seize the premises of election commissions in the north of Kosovo and Metohija. The Serbian population rebuffed the Kosovars, who fled across the Ibar River. On 8 December, some 350 police officers from Kosovo invaded the Serb-populated north of the province in armoured vehicles and blockaded the northern part of Kosovska Mitrovica. On 10 December, Kosovo police in Kosovska Mitrovica arrested a former Serb policeman on trumped-up charges. In response, the Serbian population took to the streets and barricaded highways in several settlements.

On December 15, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said that the Cabinet of Ministers had decided to send a request to the NATO mission in the province for the return of Serbian military and police to Kosovo and Metohija in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1244.