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Serbian armed forces were on “the highest level” of alert, defence Minister Milos Vucevic said, highlighting the Balkan country’s increasingly strained relations with neighbouring Kosovo over recent shootings and blockades.
Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, but Belgrade has refused to recognise it and encouraged Kosovo’s 120,000 ethnic Serbs to defy Pristina’s authority – especially in the north where ethnic Serbs make up the majority.
The Serbian army has been put on a heightened state of alert over tensions with Kosovo multiple times in recent years – the last time in November after the government claimed that several drones entered Serbian airspace from Kosovo.
On 10 December, Serbs in northern Kosovo set up barricades to protest against the arrest of an ex-policeman suspected of being involved in attacks against ethnic Albanian police officers.
The blockades coincided with a rise in reported shootings, the latest on Sunday, according to Nato-led peacekeeping force KFOR.
“Serbia’s president … ordered the Serbian army to be on the highest level of combat readiness, that is to the level of the use of armed force,” defence minister Milos Vucevic said in a statement on Monday.
