Columns of cars arrive at the Serbian barricades in Kosovo. According to local media, a large number of citizens have gathered at the barricades near Zvecan, and tensions are rising. People are coming from Zvechan, Kosovska Mitrovica and surrounding areas.
Earlier, on December 11, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic called an emergency meeting of the Security Council due to the aggravation of the conflict between Kosovo and Serbia. The reason is the message of the Prime Minister of Kosovo Albin Kurti about the operation, during which the special forces of the Kosovo police will use all possible means to dismantle the barricades erected by the Serbs in the north of the region by the evening of December 11th. Vučić later stated after the meeting that it was "the hardest day of my career". He said that the Kosovo authorities could carry out an operation under a false flag to attack observers from the European Union in order to blame Serbia for this.
Vucic also said that Serbia would ask NATO peacekeepers for permission to deploy Serbian military and police in Kosovo, while specifying that there was no chance of satisfying the request. This will be the first time that Belgrade has requested the deployment of troops to Kosovo in accordance with the UN Security Council resolution that ended the 1998-1999 war. It says that Serbia could send up to 1,000 military, police and customs officers to Orthodox religious sites, Serb-majority areas and border crossings if such a deployment is approved by the commander.
The conflict between Kosovo and Serbia flared up with renewed vigor in the summer of 2022. At the end of July, Pristina announced that from August 1, Serbs entering from the territory of Serbia must exchange their documents for local ones, with a validity period of three months. Serbia itself uses the same practice. Kosovo also demanded that the Serbs change their license plates to local ones. Serbian mayors of northern Kosovo's municipalities, along with local judges and about 600 police officers, resigned last month in protest at the government's decision to replace Belgrade-issued car license plates with Pristina-issued ones.
On November 24, Serbia and Kosovo reached an agreement on the issue of car license plates and the prevention of escalation, but the conflict flared up again. In northern Kosovo, where there are a large number of ethnic Serbs, there were street riots and shootings with police.