Kosovo's independence appears imminent

Guys, this is getting really nasty and quick:

From

Moscow's envoy to NATO warned Friday that Russia may turn to "brute military force" to earn respect on the world scene if all EU nations recognize Kosovo's independence and NATO oversteps its authority in Kosovo.

However, Dmitry Rogozin said Russia was not going to get involved in any armed confrontation over Kosovo.

He said some Western countries were ruining the entire system of international law by recognizing Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia.

"If the European Union works out a single position and NATO goes beyond its current mandate in Kosovo, these organizations will conflict with the United Nations," Rogozin said in a televised hookup from Brussels.

"And we, I think, will proceed from an assumption that to be respected, we have to use brute military force," he said.

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From

Rogozin called on NATO forces deployed in Kosovo not to interfere in politics.

"We are not very happy with the information - that needs to be double-checked - that certain military leaders in the alliance have raised the issue of stopping representatives from the Serb leadership from entering Kosovo's territory. This is beyond their mandate," he said.

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So russia seems to be ditching the yalta & helsinki accords as I feared only yesterday. NATO is in Catch-22 situation now, if they allow serbs freely enter to northern kosovo it will secede, if they block it russia will crush someone. Nice!

If we look back on Cold War history the Soviet leadership had a tendency to make a lot of noise and bluster and then back down in situations like this. I strongly doubt that Kosovo's independence will result in any sort of conventional Russian military action. There really isn't much they can do in that department.

On the other hand it is a real possibility that Russia and Serbia could cooperate to arm and train Serbian paramilitaries to fight in Northern Kosovo for the right to secede. Indeed I could see Putin deploying the Spetznatz in this manner. This is all just speculation though.

This whole situation is symptomatic of the gradual change in the world to be more multi-polar. When Russia, China, India, the EU, Japan, the United States etc. are all considered superpowers we will see more of these incidents because the old-fashioned Great Power dynamics that exsisted before WWI are coming back to govern geopolitics.

Finn McCool said:

If we look back on Cold War history the Soviet leadership had a tendency to make a lot of noise and bluster and then back down in situations like this. I strongly doubt that Kosovo's independence will result in any sort of conventional Russian military action. There really isn't much they can do in that department.

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Not on kosovo but georgia could be on the firing line if russians will go through with these threats. I predict that we'll see some demands of independence in eastern ukraine and maybe in russian-dominated areas of baltic states in short future, too.

Serbia concentrating tanks on kosovo border?

According to kosovo border police is reporting serb army tank concentrations on serbia-kosovo border as serbs are pouring into northern kosovo and kosovo authorities are imposing restrictions to prevent serb entry.

If the russian sable-rattling keeps NATO from intervening serbs will crush any attempt of kosovo albanians to keep northern kosovo from seceding.

Stats:
Serbian armed forces have around 270 tanks, T-72s and Yugoslav-produced s which is drastically improved version of T-72, and is close to T-90S in capability. They also have approx 570 IFVs, mainly yugo-built s which is comparable to BPM-2 or french AMX-10.

Anyone know what heavy weaponry NATO has in kosovo currently?

It would not be appropriate to comment on NATO heavy weapons holdings and dispositions right now. But Serbia notified its Reservists a few weeks ago for call-up, and Police took an inventory of abandoned housing stocks (owned by Hungarians who have left Vojvodina in recent years), perhaps in anticipation of potential Serbian refugee's needs for housing if things outside of Serbia (either Kosovo or even Bosnia, which could be destabilized by this) go south. Already there are Serb Interior Ministry types inside Kosovo, both current and former; perhaps these are the "Reservists" that clashes have been reported with, but then perhaps there troops really are Serbian Army forces in the vicinty after all. Certainly the Army is poised for operations.

The Kosovo Government, NATO, and the UN would be well advised to evacuate non-Serbs from predominantly Serbian localities now, and to form a barrier between Serb and Albanian populations. Effective and formal demarcation is required, and quickly. Even if NATO and the UN are able to keep the lid on in Kosovo, Bosnia may flare up, and that may require much more substantial additional forces to keep from getting out of control.

We must be thankful that Boris Tadic won the Serbian election a few weeks ago, he is pro-western and I do not believe he has any intention of using violence. His opponent, Tomislav Nikolic, would have been far harder to work with and might have enacted the worst-case scenarios that were talking about here. He is still the President of Serbia and he won the election with claims he would never use violence to keep Kosovo; he won the election and he and Nikolic agreed on almost every other point so that means that the majority of Serbs would not support any use of violence on the Kosovo issue. Coupled with the fact that both the President and the Prime Minister have ruled it out, I think we can safely say that unless things go way south the Serbian Army will not be deployed in large numbers/combat status and certainly will not take on NATO, KFOR or any foreign presence in Kosovo.

However I am certain that there are many in the Serbian military, Interior Ministry and police that are willing to use violence and there are also many Serbs in northern Kosovo who are willing to fight. Throw in Serbian war vets, ex- and current paramilitary types (from 90s Serb paramilitary outfits) and you can see how a whole lot of right wing Serbians could cause a fight over Northern Kosovo even if the Serbian government is dead set against it. There's a real possibility that these right wing Serbians could arm Serbs in Northern Kosovo and supply them with volunteers (many of whom would be very experienced soldiers from the 90s Yugoslav wars). That's the scenario I'm most afraid of because it is the most likely.

I think no matter which way this situation goes the chances of Northern Kosovo remaining part of the Republic of Kosovo are very slim.

By the way, aikh, I would find anything reported by Russia Today suspect. I don't know anything about the newspaper but I would assume given the sate of the Russian media and Russia's position on this that it might not be 100% accurate.

Finn McCool said:

By the way, aikh, I would find anything reported by Russia Today suspect. I don't know anything about the newspaper but I would assume given the sate of the Russian media and Russia's position on this that it might not be 100% accurate.

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Wikipedia: Russia Today TV, more often known as Russia Today, is a global English-language news channel from Russia, owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia's state news agency, RIA-Novosti.

It's as "accurate" as any government mouthpiece. However, it's a good insight how the kremlin wants to show the kosovo conflict to international audience.

Off-topic: I just hate when on-line news update their stories without providing trackback to previous version of article.