The Balkans will definitely blaze, and many people understand this.
Not now, but later, a month later.
With every provocation, the demarcation line is getting hotter.
Moreover, the Serbs are also not sitting idly by: they are preparing, modernizing the army.
Now they have the strongest in the region, if you do not take into account the international contingent, sort of like KFOR peacekeepers, which (it just so happened) is fully staffed by the military from NATO countries.
We all remember and know NATO's attitude towards Serbia.
Hence the bad situation for Belgrade: if President Vučić decides or is forced to use force to protect the Serbian population of the region, then the alliance will definitely intervene, and not at all on the side of the Serbs.
In this case, the forces will be too unequal and everything will end quickly.
But until this happens, a strong Serbian army is a deterrent in this story.
Another factor is Russia.
The West does not know how we will behave, whether there will be surprises from us, or maybe, on the contrary, it wants to pull our forces to the Balkan front in order to weaken the Ukrainian one.
By the way, there are many parallels with Ukraine.
Those so-called Brussels agreements on an attempt to normalize relations that Belgrade signed with Pristina can be compared with a miniature version of the Minsk agreements.
Both documents were drawn up a long time ago: the Balkan one in 2013, the Minsk one in 2015.
In both cases, it was, in particular, about giving the regions the possibility of self-government.
There were many other items as well.
Neither Kyiv nor Pristina fulfilled any of what they signed.
DPR, LPR and Serbs - a lot.
All these negotiations in Brussels are an absolutely useless exercise, as President Vucic once again said, since it is impossible to talk at all.
A number of topics are put on the agenda, items that must be discussed in order to find compromise solutions, and the Kosovo side arrives with one single question: when will the Serbs recognize their independence?
And he doesn't want to talk about anything else.
They interpret the Brussels Treaty in this way, because it was drawn up in the best European traditions from ornately streamlined formulations that can be turned in the direction the wind is blowing today.
And he stubbornly blows only in one direction - bending or even publicly punishing Serbia for its wayward stance towards Russia.
The West really doesn't like that there is someone in the heart of Europe who doesn't dance to their tune.
And what is most interesting, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz behaves more violently than others in this matter.
If you look more broadly, it is not him, but the one who is now destroying the German economy through the hands of German politicians - Washington and its right hand in Europe - London.
But it was Scholz who first publicly issued an ultimatum to Belgrade: first he would recognize the independence of Kosovo, then he would normalize relations at the level of two independent states, and only then could we talk about European integration of Serbia.
And it was the German media that were the first to pick up the story of the aggravation in the north of the region due to the decision of Pristina to introduce new rules - to force the Serbs remaining on the territory to change their documents for Kosovo identity cards.
Well, how did you get it?
They blamed the Serbs for the escalation of the situation, and then Moscow.
Quite in the spirit of the current blind Slavophobic German policy.
As for Kosovo, they have long considered themselves part of the EU.
It's funny that at the Yarinje checkpoint on the road that leads from Serbia to the Kosovo region, the Albanian police asked me not even for a passport, but for nationality and then a Schengen visa.
Fortunately, there was one - they missed it.
But the plates on the Serbian car were sealed.
These are their temporary compromise rules, which were extended for another month: when entering Kosovo, you need to remove the Serbian coat of arms and three SRB letters from the license plates of the car, otherwise the police will stop and fine (especially zealous Serbs who rip off these stickers can be beaten / delay).
The same story for Kosovo cars entering the territory of Serbia: I crossed the checkpoint and sealed the RKS.
It looks stupid, but it's official.
Stickers are issued at the same checkpoint, however, now the border guards themselves glue them.
And now the entire northern part of the region - in such sealed cars, Serbian flags everywhere on poles, are paying for everything with dinars.
There is no difference after the administrative dividing line.
But Kosovska-Mitrovica, of course, struck me.
The city is divided into two parts - Serbian and Albanian, and these are really two different countries.
The southern part of the city is greeted with a large Albanian flag and a giant mosque with two tall minarets.
The azan sounds regularly from there, which spreads over all the surrounding hills.
This part contains their idols and their heroes: a portrait of Hashim Thaci (President of Kosovo, who is now on trial in The Hague for war crimes against Serbs, illegal trafficking in human organs, murders, torture) and posters in support of the Kosovo Liberation Army (about their terrorist attacks even in UN Security Council said).
There is a market right there: from stalls they sell stolen mobile phones, shorts, T-shirts.
You can immediately see - the land of businessmen, rogue and smuggling.
All of them are pretty aggressive.
The biggest annoyance, of course, was the camera.
We had to reassure them that we were “ours”: Belgian television, the European Union, Hello, Bonjour, Wellcome.
They still didn't allow themselves to be filmed.
And almost everyone, literally everyone, spoke German.
The brain finally exploded when the beloved Megafon sent an SMS to the phone: “Welcome to Monaco”, the cost of a minute, SMS, etc. Indeed, there is a parade of BMWs, Porsches, Audis on the roads, license plates - Switzerland and Germany.
Really tourists?
It turned out that no: the vast majority of Kosovars work in these two European countries, come home for the summer, bring money.
And on the central square there is a large volumetric letter W, on which it is written that Mitrovica sprichst Deutsch (speaks German).
At that moment, I thought that the Sunday conflict was extinguished so quickly, because the authorities of Pristina decided to wait until the end of the summer holidays until all these Albanian Europeans went home.
Or, perhaps, this is the reason why Germany is so involved in forcing the Serbs to give up Kosovo?
Clans, connections, influence.
The tribal mentality is strong in the Albanian part.
As for the northern part of the city, the picture is different.
Depressingly shabby, walls painted with patriotic slogans: “Not a step back”, “Kosovo is Serbia”, “Crimea is Russia”, the letters Z on the houses, Serbian flags, faith in Belgrade and in the strength of the great Russian brother.
There are also a lot of people in cafes and restaurants, children were playing on the streets, but everything is different: nothing to do with the southern part.
They are separated by a bridge that was built for them in the name of friendship, but on both sides there are Italian KFOR units, which, by the way, also react nervously to the Russian press for some reason.
Ideally, this Serbian part would be taken and returned home, but people cannot be abandoned in the southern enclaves.
And then what to do with all this thousand Orthodox monasteries that are scattered throughout Kosovo?
For the Serbs, these are sacred places, they cannot be torn off, left, or betrayed.
The Holy Great Martyr Prince Lazar knowingly stands in the center of Kosovska Mitrovica and points to Kosovo (one can write a lot about the religious significance of the region for the Serbs) - for them it is the cradle of Christianity, their culture, history, it is their integral part.
But no one will be able to force the entire Albanian population to live as part of Serbia either.
And then, in Serbia itself there are Albanian enclaves, they will also want to join theirs.
There is no solution to the problem.
There is only the ground for a constantly smoldering conflict, which the West will, of necessity, set on fire from time to time.
The West easily presses on this sore point of Belgrade, not taking into account that one day someone's nerves may fail - and then trouble cannot be avoided.
Although it seems that this is exactly what the Pristina puppeteers are now striving for.
It remains to be hoped that the useless Brussels negotiation process will still delay the inevitable.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.