Kosovo Serbs to Remove Barricades that Triggered Tensions

A burnt-out truck, part of a barricade stands on the bridge near the northern, Serb-dominated part of ethnically divided town of Mitrovica, Kosovo, Thursday, Dec. 29, 2022. (AP Photo/Bojan Slavkovic)
A burnt-out truck, part of a barricade stands on the bridge near the northern, Serb-dominated part of ethnically divided town of Mitrovica, Kosovo, Thursday, Dec. 29, 2022. (AP Photo/Bojan Slavkovic)
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Kosovo Serbs to Remove Barricades that Triggered Tensions

A burnt-out truck, part of a barricade stands on the bridge near the northern, Serb-dominated part of ethnically divided town of Mitrovica, Kosovo, Thursday, Dec. 29, 2022. (AP Photo/Bojan Slavkovic)
A burnt-out truck, part of a barricade stands on the bridge near the northern, Serb-dominated part of ethnically divided town of Mitrovica, Kosovo, Thursday, Dec. 29, 2022. (AP Photo/Bojan Slavkovic)

Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic said late Wednesday that Serbs will start removing their barricades in Kosovo on Thursday in a move that could deescalate tensions that triggered fears of new clashes in the Balkans.

The agreement was reached at a late-night crisis meeting with the leaders of Kosovo Serbs, Vucic said.

It followed the release of a former Kosovo Serb police officer, whose detention triggered a major crisis between Serbia and Kosovo that provoked international concerns. He has been ordered released from prison and placed under house arrest, The Associated Press said.

“This means that from tomorrow (Thursday), from the morning hours, the removal of barricades will begin," Vucic said after the meeting. “This is not a simple process, and can’t be done in two hours, as some imagined.”

"“Within 24 to 48 hours the barricades will be removed,” Vucic said. “But the distrust is not removed.”

The Dec. 10 arrest of the former officer, Dejan Pantic, led to protests by Kosovo Serbs who erected multiple roadblocks in the north of the country.

Pantic was detained for “terrorism” after allegedly assaulting a Kosovo police officer during an earlier protest.

Kosovo’s prime minister, Albin Kurti, criticized the court’s decision to release Pantic on house arrest.

“I’m curious to know who is the prosecutor that makes a request and judge who approves a decision to place someone on house arrest when they have a standing terrorism charge,” Kurti said at a news conference.

Pantic's arrest prompted weeks of tense standoffs, punctuated by gunfire and explosions near patrols of the NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping force and journalists. No one was severely injured.
Ultimately, Serbia raised combat readiness of its troops on the border with Kosovo, demanding an end to “attacks” against Kosovo Serbs.

Kosovo has asked NATO-led peacekeepers stationed there to remove the barriers and hinted that Pristina’s forces would do it if the peacekeeping force did not react. About 4,000 NATO-led peacekeepers have been stationed in Kosovo since a 1998-99 separatist war ended with Serbia losing control over what was then one of its provinces.

Late Tuesday, Serbs blocked one of the main roads from Serbia to Kosovo, at the border crossing of Merdare, prompting Kosovo’s authorities to call on thousands of expats heading to Kosovo for the holidays from European countries to avoid that crossing and use others.

“The erection of the barricades in the roads is an unlawful and unacceptable act that will not be tolerated,” Kurti said. “We have given KFOR the time and space needed to act, but of course, this time is quickly running out,” he warned.

The United States and the European Union expressed concern at the situation in a joint statement Wednesday.

“We call on everyone to exercise maximum restraint, to take immediate action to unconditionally de-escalate the situation, and to refrain from provocations, threats, or intimidation,” the statement released by the State Department and the EU said.

It added that both parties were working with Serbia's Vucic and Kosovo's Kurti “to find a political solution ... and agree on the way forward.”

The statement welcomed what it said were assurances from Kosovo's leaders that there exist no lists of Kosovo Serbs to be arrested or prosecuted for peaceful protests or erecting barricades.

“At the same time, rule of law must be respected, and any form of violence is unacceptable and will not be tolerated,” it stressed.

The German government said it is “very concerned” about the tensions in northern Kosovo.

“The illegal barricades erected by Kosovo Serbs must be taken down as quickly as possible, and yesterday’s blockade of the Merdare border crossing on the Serbian side exacerbates the situation further,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Christofer Burger said in Berlin.

France’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday warned any travelers near the Serbia-Kosovo border to exercise “the greatest vigilance” and avoid gatherings as long as the tensions last.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008. Western attempts to mediate a negotiated settlement to normalize relations between the two have failed, with Serbia refusing to recognize Kosovo’s statehood.



80 Years Ago World War II in Europe Was Over. Celebrating V-E Day Is Now Tinged with Some Dread 

European Parliament President Roberta Metsola (Frist row - 3rd R) holds a European Union flag during the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, as part of a plenary session at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, eastern France on May 7, 2025. (AFP)
European Parliament President Roberta Metsola (Frist row - 3rd R) holds a European Union flag during the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, as part of a plenary session at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, eastern France on May 7, 2025. (AFP)
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80 Years Ago World War II in Europe Was Over. Celebrating V-E Day Is Now Tinged with Some Dread 

European Parliament President Roberta Metsola (Frist row - 3rd R) holds a European Union flag during the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, as part of a plenary session at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, eastern France on May 7, 2025. (AFP)
European Parliament President Roberta Metsola (Frist row - 3rd R) holds a European Union flag during the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, as part of a plenary session at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, eastern France on May 7, 2025. (AFP)

Even if the end of World War II in Europe spawned one of the most joyous days the continent ever lived, Thursday’s 80th anniversary of V-E Day is haunted as much by the specter of current-day conflict as it celebrates the defeat of ultimate evil.

Hitler’s Nazi Germany had finally surrendered after a half-decade of invading other European powers and propagating racial hatred that led to genocide, the Holocaust and the murdering of millions.

That surrender and the explosion of hope for a better life is being celebrated with parades in London and Paris and towns across Europe while even the leaders of erstwhile mortal enemies France and Germany are bonding again.

Germany’s new foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, paid tribute to “the enormous sacrifices of the Allies” in helping his country win its freedom from the Nazis and said that millions of people were “disenfranchised and tormented by the Nazi regime.”

“Hardly any day has shaped our history as much as May 8, 1945,” he said in a statement. “Our historical responsibility for this breach of civilization and the commemoration of the millions of victims of the Second World War unleashed by Nazi Germany gives us a mandate to resolutely defend peace and freedom in Europe today."

A German soldier carries a small coffin with the remains of fallen German soldiers of WWII to the grave during a funeral service at a memorial site for fallen soldiers in Halbe, Germany, Wednesday, April 30, 2025. (AP)

His comments underscore that former European enemies may thrive — to the extent that the 27-nation European Union even won the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize — but that the outlook has turned gloomy over the past year.

Bodies continue to pile up in Ukraine, where Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion started the worst war on the continent since 1945. The rise of the hard right in several EU member states is putting the founding democratic principles of the bloc under increasing pressure.

And even NATO, that trans-Atlantic military alliance that assured peace in Europe under the US nuclear umbrella and its military clout, is under internal strain rarely seen since its inception.

“The time of Europe’s carefree comfort, joyous unconcern is over. Today is the time of European mobilization around our fundamental values and our security,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said at a Dutch memorial event in the lead-up to the celebrations.

It makes this unlikely stretch of peace in Europe anything but a given.

"This peace is always unsure. There are always some clouds above our heads. Let’s do what we can, so that peace should reign forever in Europe,” Robert Chot, a Belgian World War II veteran, told a solemn gathering of the European legislature.

European Parliament President Roberta Metsola sounded gloomy.

Britain's Queen Camilla (L), flanked by Constable of the Tower of London, General Gordon Messenger (R), visits the ceramic poppies installation at the Tower of London on May 6, 2025 to celebrate the 80th anniversary of V-E Day also known as Victory in Europe Day, marking the end of the Second World War in Europe. (AFP)

“Once again war has returned to our continent, once again cities are being bombed, civilians attacked, families torn apart. The people of Ukraine are fighting not only for their land, but for freedom, for sovereignty, for democracy, just as our parents and our grandparents once did,” she told the legislature on Wednesday.

“The task before us today is the same as it was then to honor memory, to protect democracy, to preserve peace,” Metsola said.

Commemorations have been going all week through Europe, and Britain has taken a lead. Here too, the current-day plight of Ukraine in its fight against Russia took center stage.

“The idea that this was all just history and it doesn’t matter now somehow, is completely wrong,” UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said. “Those values of freedom and democracy matter today.”

In London later Thursday, a service will be held in Westminster Abbey and a concert, for 10,000 members of the public, at Horse Guards Parade. In Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron is expected to oversee a ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe.

And in Berlin, Chancellor Friedrich Merz will again highlight how Germany has remodeled itself into a beacon of European democracy by laying a wreath at the central memorial for the victims of war and tyranny.

And, symbolically, Russia and President Vladimir Putin will be totally out of lockstep with the rest of Europe, celebrating its Victory Day one day later with a huge military parade on Red Square in central Moscow to mark the massive Soviet contribution to defeat Nazi Germany.