comment: >
  
  Almost... maybe try asking again a little nicer & that might work.
context: Can someone summarize what is the situation in Kosovo? The article more or less describes how the “match was lit”, but I don’t really understand how or why Serbs and Albanians hate each other. >
  
  
  Albanians settled the area during the Ottoman empire and over time became slim majority of population. This was all before individual countries had their own national identity. People were still living sort of tribal mentality. There were no borders and such. Albanians came because of pastures at higher altitude where their sheep could graze.  
  During First Balkan War: Kingdom of Serbia occupies the land as their own "historic inheritance" and kill lot of Albanians. But they lose it shorty after. 
  After WW1: Austro-Hungary is destroyed and Serbia manages to expand its territory to cover Kosovo, Vojvodina and Montenegro. This is the height of their expansion. Serbs are like: "Oh boy! Here I go killing again." and murder a whole lot more Albanians. 
  First Yugoslavia is formed and Serbia manages to impose dictatorship on all countries being part of it. Kosovo is not mentioned individually. Instead, King Alexander proclaimed it as "part of Serbian land of old". 
  After WW2: Second Yugoslavia is formed as federation of independent nations. Tito says something like: "You Serbs are nothing but trouble. Best we try to keep you away from causing ethnic tensions." Kosovo is granted status of "autonomous province" and its borders are formally established. With later changes in the constitution Kosovo was de facto a republic with its own institutions and Albanian as official language. 
  
  
  Yugoslavia breaks up. All former republics decide to push for independence. Serbs decide this is right time to attempt another genocide, only this time they could take all of Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia as well. On Kosovo they impose their own rule as part of Serbia. Running mock elections, firing Albanians from government institutions, erasing their language and culture from school curriculum, etc. 
  
  
  
  
  Genocide 2: Electric Boogaloo. So Serbs are going at it for almost a decade. They didn't manage to subjugate any of the other republics. But in late 90's they start doing a series of massacres against Albanians as sort of final push for "Greater Serbia". NATO held a conference and finally decided that only way to make them stop is to bomb them back into stone age which put final nail in the coffin of their ambition to become another empire.   
  
  
  Early 2000's: The problem is what to do with Kosovo? They are almost their own country and have a long history of fighting for independence ever since the Ottomans. It's not possible to integrate them back to Albania proper. So international community decides to recognize Kosovo as independent. 
  Now: Serbs in Kosovo are still fighting against this. They want their own documents and car plates issued by Serbia as sort of gesture of civil disobedience. And they want free pass through border without any controls. But in current political climate it is just a denial of reality. Kosovo treated them as small children and allowed them a sort of leniency with this (because they didn't want to provoke them). But now, with Western countries being involved with war in Ukraine, Serbs are emboldened to try and stir more trouble. They started with blocking the roads and firebombing government offices, but it might escalate further. >
  
  To a Brit, the situation as you've described in Kosovo sounds kind of like Northern Ireland (apologies if that sounds ignorantly Anglo-centric). Eg a region settled by two different ethnicities, with different religions, who want to belong to different states. Is there any equivalent to the Good Friday Agreement in place? >
  
  It's not analogous. Northern Ireland's conflict between Protestants and Unionists on one side and Catholics and Republicans on the other is still marked by a shared language and shared culture.  
  Serbs speak a Southern Slavic language and write in Cyrillic. Albanians speak Albanian, which is a language isolate like Greek and Armenian, use the Roman alphabet, and they have a radically different culture. Serbs are mostly Eastern Orthodox Christians; Most Albanians are at least nominally Sufi Muslim (though there are significant Catholic and Orthodox minorities; there is an aphorism "The true religion of the Albanian is Albanianism" meaning that the place a premium on religious pluralism within their culture.) >
  
  related to the southern Slavic languages how? >
  
  Via their shared common ancestor Proto-Indo-European. All Indo-European languages share a common ancestor: and therefore all Indo-European languages are related. Here's a tree diagram of Indo-European languages, that might help explain >
  
  They might have a shared ancestor, but they're different branches and are completely different linguistically. It's like saying that humans and fish are related because they share an ancestor far enough back. While that's technically true, it doesn't really matter anymore because they've developed in different ways and are no longer similar in nearly every way. Albanian is a very old language and it's a language isolate, it doesn't share etymology or grammatical form with other languages in the region. Same way Greek doesn't share with others. >
  
  I've already shown, that it isn't a language isolate, as such a language must demonstrably not have a shared relative, which Albanian (and Greek) does. I think your reticence to accept this is based in ignorance of linguistics, which is fine! What's not fine, is to continue your arguments when they have no basis in linguistic reality. Please use the links I've provided to gain some knowledge about historical comparative linguistics - or feel free to ask! >
  
  What do they share then, apart from a very distant coming ancestor? >
  
  Why do I have a feeling this Serbia Kosovo problem is only going to escelate an already tense region and become serious? >
  
  Nah, it is just some serbian nationalism bull shit, serbia would not be in their right mind to attack. Kosov is protected by nato, similar to how Taiwan is. If they were to attack serbia, it would get annihilated. They are surrounded by nato states, and their main benefactor Russia has its hands full and seems to be much weaker than anticipated. The Serbs living in kosovo do not want to recognize the authorities there and refuse to get the kosov license plates and other stuff. Meanwhile, there are Albanians in serbia that abid by the rules, but hey, a lot of Serbs are so brainwashed they seem to think they are some very special people. Like the president, vucic is just doing propagada look guys i tried, but evil nato does not let us annihilate the albanien people in kosov and we can not match up to them because we are smaller. >
  
  I would agree with this although it doesn't mean Serbian nationalists won't try to escalate. They are not really under Vucic's control. But I would suggest that in fact these days the troublemakers are a small but loud minority and most Serbs just want to get on with a peaceful life. Few have an appetite for conflict, memories of the chaos of the 90s are still pretty fresh. I haven't been there for a few years though so things may be different now, in light of the Russia situation. >
  
  They stink of russia. Absolutely the right choice >
  
  They are basically southern Russians. 
  I know few Serbs and they are good people, but as a country its basically slightly better russia. 
  Even  a lot of Serbians lbiing abroad will tell you its a shitshow. >
  
  It is. Its a massively corrupt state with shitty people supporting it. >
  
  Serbia makes a big mess, then expects NATO to clean it up. This is your problem, Serbia. >
  
  More like the other way around tbh. >
  
  Two unarmed Kosovo Serbs were shot on Orthodox Christmas Eve this year. That was a few days ago. The man who shot them was an ethnic Albanian. They were carrying oak branches used in Serbian Christmas celebrations. Both survived and are recovering. One is 21 and the other is 11. People on here are talking about ethnic Serbs like we're a bunch of genocidal subhuman maniacs while refusing to recognize why the Serbs in Kosovo are protesting. They're terrified. They see shit like this everyday on TV and then fear that the Albanians might shoot their children next. You can't really blame them.
  While the Serbian government is responsible for much of the recent tensions and Vučić is a shithead, the area is de facto controlled by the Albanians and is "protected" by NATO (I put protected in quotes because they clearly only protect one "side"). They have the power to put an end to this by giving the Serbs more autonomy and ending the attacks on random civilians. This won't end until both sides take responsibility and part of that requires that the Albanians recognize that the KLA committed brutal atrocities against civilians, crimes that former Kosovo Albanian leader Hashim Thaci is currently on trial for at the Hague Tribunal. There is little point in taking "sides" so people on here ought to cut it out and join the 21st century instead of adopting the talking points of the ethnonationalists they pretend to oppose.
  TLDR: Sorry for the long rant, I'm still angry about the shooting of two young Serbs a few days ago. I get along well will Albanians and thing our peoples should end this crisis. However, that requires that both sides make concessions and the people on here don't seem to recognize that there's more depth here than "Serbia Bad, Kosovo Good!"
  EDIT: And also, there will not be another war. At least not anytime soon. Vučić wouldn't benefit from it and he doesn't take marching orders from the Kremlin in the way reddit seems to think he does. He's just a corrupt politicians who uses populist rhetoric to secure power. There's nothing more to it than that. >
  
  Dude, those serbians make 5% of the population but want law deciding power. Name one democracy in the world where that is okay. Everyone has their vote, and the serbs in kosovo do aswell use that to decide. People there from the north were also working in state institutions, etc. Just because a maniac decides to shoot two people does not mean it is backed up by the authorities. If so, germany would be a terrorist, nazi state etc... Also the current PM of Kosovo is trying really hard to make the law work there, which would benefit serbs as well, since if injustices occures they could go to court but not only do they hate the current PM but they so not recognize the state or it's authorities or laws( at least those that put the barricades) people even left their jobs working as police officers or at the state. So yeah, Serbs are definitely on the wrong here. There are ethnic albaniens in Serbia. You do not see them request law deciding votes  or barricading towns, and when i see in the news thar your sports team had a poster with kill all albaniens written in Serbien aswell as people marching in vienna shouting that I am pretty sure that they face at least the same prejudice if not more in Serbia. Remember the mass graves Serbia caused its neighbors, Yugoslavia, was held together by force mainly through Serbia, the serbs were the rulers of Yugoslavia so kinda hard to argue that they were not the bad guys. You guys fucked up big time but somehow you keep playing victim cards while still keep on fucking up. Serbia supports russia, which is doing some really fucked up shit, a lot of people in Russia do not even support it but lots fear putin. >
  
  How on earth were the Serbs the rulers of Yugoslavia? Tito, who ruled the country for most of its existence, was half Croat, half Slovene. Aleksandar Rankoović, the ethnic Serb head of UDBa secret police, was removed in the 1960s, leading to a period of decentralization which put a disproportionate percent of state power in the hands of minorities. Under the 1974 constitution, Slovenia (whose population made up 8% of Yugoslavia) had as much veto power as the Serbs, which had only one Republic and made up 40% of the population. 
  Also, the KLA committed many of the same crimes as Milošević. Whole towns were massacred and women were raped. Then, after the NATO bombardment, most of the ethnic Serbs in Kosovo were forced out and either moved to Serbia or fled to North Kosovo. That's 200,000 people. Only now, 20 years later, are KLA leaders being put on trial in the Netherlands for these crimes. Meanwhile, most of the Kosovo Albanians oppose the war crimes trials taking place. 
  Kosovo Serbs make up around 8% of the Kosovo population. However, unlike the Slovenes of the 1970s, they are not demanding the ability to veto anything they don't like. They want autonomy. There are plenty of autonomous regions in functioning democracies across the world. The Serbian and Kosovo Albanian governments even agreed to form a "Community of Serb Municipalities" (map here) but the Albanians have not yet implemented this. We Serbs did some fucked up shit in Kosovo in the 90s but that doesn't make KLA war crimes any less evil.
  Also, we do not support Putin's war. We condemned the Russian annexation at the UN, donated € 1.5 million to UNICEF to help Ukrainians, and have accepted Ukrainian refuges. Our politicians play to both sides, East and West, because they think doing that will maximize the returns. This has been a Serbian/Yugoslav political strategy since Tito's time. We don't sanction Russia for their invasion of Ukraine for the same reason we didn't sanction the US after the invasion of Iraq or for their use of torture at Guantanamo. Doing so would hurt our population. We need Russia for oil and we need the West as a trading partner. I personally don't like Vučić but his decision making in this one area makes sense to me.