MOSCOW. Jan 24 (Interfax) - Moscow has demanded punishment for those who have carried out "barbaric" anti-Serb attacks and acts of vandalism in Kosovo.
"We are extremely anxious about the exacerbation of the situation in the Serbian province of Kosovo," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said in a statement posted on the ministry's website, www.mid.ru, on Wednesday.
"Just in the past few days, more than 150 Serb graves have been vandalized in several villages throughout Kosovo. There has been an attempt to raid a monastery in the town of Djakovica, and fire has been set to an Orthodox church in the town of Obilic. A memorial for World War II victims in the town of Vitina has been blown up. There has been an attempt to vandalize the Serbian municipal authorities building in the town of Kosovska Mitrovica," Lukashevich said.
"The reason for those outrages was the demolition by Serbian law enforcement in Presevo, southern Serbia, of a monument to Albanian militants from the so-called Liberation Army of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedji," he said.
"We demand that international bodies maintaining their presence in the province take necessary measures, as authorized by their mandates, to look for and punish those guilty of those barbaric acts and to prevent such incidents in the future," the spokesman said.