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Tue. 8:44 a.m.: Serbian troops placed on alert after Kosovo police arrests

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Russia is demanding that Kosovo authorities immediately release a Russian U.N. employee detained and injured during a police operation in northern Kosovo that has fueled tensions with Serbia.

Alexander Chepurin, the Russian ambassador to Belgrade, said today on Twitter that “we are revolted by the provocation.” Chepurin says the detained Russian citizen is an associate of the U.N. mission in Kosovo known as UNMIK.

He adds that “we are demanding immediate release of the Russian (citizen) and establishing the responsibility for all those responsible for this flagrant incident.”

Kosovo said today’s incursion in the Serb-dominated northern region was an operation against corruption and crime. Serbia warned it was a threat to peace and said it has put its troops on full alert.

Kosovo’s President Hashim Thaci said that the Russian citizen was “camouflaged under a diplomatic veil to hamper the police operation.”

Russia, a Serbian ally, does not recognize Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Belgrade in 2008.

Serbia put its troops on full alert today.

It was the latest flare-up in long-simmering tensions between Serbia and its former province, which declared independence from Belgrade in 2008 after a bloody 1998-99 war that ended only with NATO intervention. Ninety percent of population in northern Kosovo are Serbs who don’t want to be part of independent Kosovo. Action by Kosovo special police there is rare and always triggers Serb anger.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said Kosovo police arrested 23 Serbs and Bosnians after “bursting” into the northern area with armored vehicles. He said he had seen video of the police firing “live ammunition” over the heads of unarmed Serbs, and said the operation was designed to intimidate minority Serbs in Kosovo, whose population is mostly ethnic Albanians.

Vucic said he has ordered soldiers near the border to be on “combat alert” to protect Serbs if tensions escalate.

“Serbia will try to preserve peace and stability, but will be fully ready to protect our people at the shortest notice,” Vucic told parliament.

Serbian state TV reported movements of Serb troops stationed near the border. Any Serbian armed incursion into Kosovo would mean a direct clash with NATO-led peacekeepers there.

Kosovo’s prime minister, Ramush Haradinaj, confirmed on Twitter that police had carried out “an anti-smuggling and organized crime operation.” Thaci called on the ethnic Serb minority to remain calm and support the police.

“Those involved in illegal activities will go behind bars,” he wrote on his Facebook page, insisting that the police operation was not targeting people from specific ethnicities.

The spokesman for the NATO peacekeeping mission, Col. Vincenzo Grasso, said the force is monitoring the situation and coordinating with authorities.

Serbia, and its allies Russia and China, do not recognize Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence. The United States and most other countries do. The dispute has stalled both countries’ efforts to become members of the European Union.

The two sides had been participating in an EU-facilitated dialogue, but Serbia walked away in November after Kosovo slapped a 100 percent tax on Bosnian and Serbian imports, saying it will be lifted only when the two countries recognize Kosovo’s sovereignty.

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