Petronic: KSF conducts live ammunition drills near North Mitrovica to intimidate

Veroljub Petronic, a security expert from North Mitrovica, believes that the Kosovo Security Force (KSF) members want to show that they are present and want to be exposed to the media by performing live ammunition shooting drills at the Crnus training ground, Politka reports.

The Minister of Defense of Kosovo, Armend Mehaj, announced on social networks that members of the KSF were conducting shooting drills at the Crnus training ground and that they were using live ammunition during these drills.

"The third infantry regiment of the Ground Forces Command carried out a field exercise at the tactical training ground in Crnusa, South Mitrovica, with live ammunition and thereby checked two teams of Company B. During the implementation of this two-week drill, our soldiers are trained in precise fire, fire control on an individual level and operations command, fire control teamwork. The drill is being carried out as part of the training plan for 2023, in order to improve operational skills and capacities, as well as to check the infantry," Mehaj said.

Veroljub Petronic, a security expert from North Mitrovica, believes this is just one more pressure because there are many other training grounds, Sputnik reports.

"I saw an announcement in the media, probably there is some order to conduct the drills, but I didn't see it. The fact that they chose the training ground on Crnusa is no accident. It is an old training ground of the former Yugoslav People's Army, and surely the citizens are worried because it is near Kosovska Mitrovica," he says.

He points out that so far, a large number of drills with live ammunition have been carried out.

"So far, they have conducted many more combat exercises at the Magura training grounds in Urosevac and Slatina, close to the airport near Pristina. With this, they show that they are there and that they expose themselves to the media, intending to show that the armed forces are practicing. They have the right because they got that land from the municipality of South Mitrovica," Petronic says.

Petronic believes that the combat drills aim to show that the KSF is there and that it is armed with live ammunition.

"It is with the aim of additional intimidation or a warning that they are near Kosovska Mitrovica and that members of the so-called Kosovo army are armed with live ammunition, which in no way contributes to calming the tensions that are currently very high in the north of Kosovo and Metohija," Petronic concluded.