Russian Peacekeepers Kill 3 Serbs

Russian peacekeeping troops, whom Serbs have regarded as their only sympathetic and reliable protectors in Kosovo, Monday shot and killed three Serbs who had attacked a group of ethnic Albanians and then fired at the Russians, officials said.

The incident provoked disbelief and bitterness among Serbs near the eastern Kosovo village of Ranilug, where the shootings took place.

NATO Secretary General Javier Solana said the incident proved the Russians are living up to their duties as members of the NATO-led peacekeeping force and are not - as ethnic Albanians have charged - biased toward the province’s dwindling Serbian community, whose people have a centuries-long affiliation with Russia.

“It proves that Russian troops are behaving according to their obligations,” Solana said.

Ethnic Albanians have greeted the Russians with hostility because Russian volunteers fought for the Serbs in their armed conflict with the Kosovo Liberation Army, an ethnic Albanian guerrilla force that sought Kosovo’s independence from Serbia.

The Ranilug shootings were the latest incident in a surge of violence between ethnic Albanians and Serbs.

Last week, a bomb was tossed into a Serbian apartment in Pristina, killing one occupant. Two Serbs were wounded by gunfire near Ajnovice in eastern Kosovo over the weekend, and two ethnic Albanians were wounded in an attack on a bus outside the town of Gniljane.