Simply flying through that area regularly, many radar units are unwilling even to give you the call sign of their neighbours. It’s a rare Belgrade controller who will tell you to contact Sarajevo or KFOR, similarly a rare Zagreb controller who will tell you to contact Belgrade…

Understatement of the week. ;) The Dayton agreement was only achieved by quite a bit of arm twisting. (Red an article recently about those weeks in Ohio, I'll see if I can find a link). The three parties went into it feeling that they had done so "Against our wills, Papa, against our wills!"
No surprise.

Spent many dets in Kosovo 99/2000. Always knew this was not finished. Speak to any Serb. They waited a long time to kick the Ottomans out. They then get their country handed to the Albanians, courtesy of NATO.
Do not believe the western narrative that think the Albanians were all sweet and light and the Serbs were evil. There were atrocities on both sides, but we were fed the party line.
Do not fall for the narrative.

Agree entirely with you, but the party line is really pervasive. It is almost as if there was a monopoly on the news.
It is sobering when one has to read Xinhua or the World Socialist Web site to get a more balanced view of events.

you must be Serbian. “Serbs get their country handed to the albanians” says it all. Were the Albanians also responsible for the massacres of Bosnians and Croats?

The Albanians are autochthonous to the region. Serbs are not. The Albanian population in Kosovo is around 95%. But you say its Serbian Land? Go spew your propaganda somewhere else.

Of course you do etudiant, bad takes are your thing. It's utter tosh that the Serbs were the victims, just as it's utter tosh that the Russians are the victims in Ukraine today. The Serbs were the aggressors throughout the Yugoslav wars, of which Kosovo was the culmination. After a decade of genocide and massacres, the West finally had had enough and the Serbs finally got to reap what they had sown.

As part of the follow on from Russian expansionism in 19th century Crimea and their push toward a warm water port on the Black Sea and eventually the Mediterranean,the Serbs were, shall we say 'encouraged' by some nationalist Russians to believe that they belonged, heart and soul, to an Orthodox 'Greater Serbia' (and not to the Islamic Ottomans) . Some were supplied with training, weapons and explosives by disaffected Russians. They felt betrayed when the Czar abandoned them to the Austro-Hungarian Empire whilst their neighbours became aligned with Russia and were again 'encouraged' to rebel against that pact (by internal Russian factions who didn't agree with the Czar).
The unintended consequence was the First World War along with the collapse of the regime in Russia.

I hope that this history is not repeating itself. Perhaps Serbian politicians could learn from history that Russian promises are worthless.

Bit of thread creep but I feel justified as I'm sure a lot of people maybe thinking the same.
Serbia, Ukraine, Chinese tanks now sabre rattling on Fujian beaches. The US in Taiwan.
Are we looking at an inevitable World Wide escalation here?
I'm asking hoping you will all say `no way` as it is a little scary.

There are reasons fo4 launching surprise attacks - a visit by a 82 year old leader of a lower chamber of government who will be out of office within a few months isn’t one of them…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%27s_final_warning

“China’s final warning”

I had not heard that Speaker Pelosi was retiring.
Her position as the Speaker of the House (next in line of succession after the Vice President) makes her visit carry a certain amount of political messaging weight. I also doubt that she'll lose her bid for re election in November.
Nice link, thanks. But...
President Xi has been slowly consolidating power and using quite a bit of rhetoric that involves "the century/centuries of humiliation" so relying on the final warning being an empty threat seems to me a careless approach - given China's much increased capability in the last quarter of a century.
President Xi may be itching to establish a precedent that "China's Final Warning" can no longer be taken lightly.

She may not be retiring, but all the polls say the democrats won’t have the majority and she won’t be the speaker any more…

We'll see. You may be right. But, the polls also predicted that H. Clinton would beat D. Trump, yet that isn't what happened. ;) (See also the predictions of Dewey beating Truman ~ whoops, that one didn't pan out either!)

ohh, what we could read on these pages...:ugh::ugh::ugh:

But I will informaly investigate case...

It is simple impossible because it is written that you must tell: the name of unit , type of service AND frequency (e.g. Zagreb radar 120.7, Banja Luka radar 136.05, Belgrade radar 123.775 etc...-you can not shorten it..)

Interestingly, following a string of Italians commanding KFOR, it is now Hungarian-led. Given that Viktor Orban is not exactly one of Putins staunchest critics, might there be any significance in the timing of this latest trouble, and might there be scope for interference from Hungary in the KFOR response?

History not only repeats, it gets worse
 

A few years ago on holiday in Istanbul I went to the military museum. On display was what was claimed to be the original Ottoman flag flown at the battle of Kosovo in 1448 (but it looked like a replica to me) . This battle was between the Turks and Hungarians. The Ottomans won and went on to capture Serbia and the rest of the Balkans, before going on to take Constantinople in 1453.

After the successful Greek revolt against the Ottomans in the 1820s, the Greeks came up with the Megali Idea (Big Idea). They wanted to recapture Constantinople for Christianity.

It's not only not over, it's hardly started. And once more the Russians are involved.

Only odd numbered world wars start in the Balkans. Oh!

ahh :}

This thread becomes expert one.

Battle of Kosovo in 1448,
Hungarian vs Turks
:ouch::oh::8:}:E:ugh::{:zzz:

Ukraine’s 40-strong peacekeeping unit, part of the KFOR mission, is leaving Kosovo

The battle of Kosovo that I usually think of was in 1398. Now I have to look up that later one.

No expertise on the Balkans, but the internecine fighting in the region during WW2 was incredibly brutal, with atrocities the order of the day, Check out Chetniks or Ustashi for details.
The place is soaked in blood, has been since Byzantine days, when one of the more successful emperors got the honorific title of 'Bulgar Killer'..The Turks just added to the mayhem, centuries later.

The second battle is the one the Turks like to focus on because it was decisive (for a few centuries at least). It's anyone's guess as to when the next battle will be fought.

I claim no expertise here, I simply reported that I saw the flag. Judging from the number of images available this is a live issue still. Are the Kosovans (a) an oppressed minority (b) a threat to their neighbours, with support from Turkey (c) both (d) not worth learning about?

two crossed flags Kosovo and Turkey waving in wind at cloudy sky. Concept of relationship, dialog, travelling between two countries. 3d illustration Stock Photo - Alamy