The KFOR peacekeeping force in Kosovo said yesterday that 750 of its Russian soldiers would be stationed in the southern town of Orahovac "within a few days" despite protests from local ethnic Albanians who are blocking the deployment.
The Kfor response came on the second day of roadblocks manned by the ethnic Albanians, who allege that Russians fought alongside Serbs during the Kosovo war and that the Russian troops will try to protect local Serb war crimes suspects.
The Russian Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, issued a statement saying the protests violated a Helsinki agreement reached in June on Russia's participation in Kfor and Kfor's UN mandate.
In its own statement, Kfor said the Russian contingent would carry on with its deployment within a few days.
It added that it was "confident the deployment will take place and that the local population will eventually realise the valuable contribution that the Russian contingent will bring to the security in the area".
The German commander of the peacekeeping troops in the southern part of Kosovo had reaffirmed this but said force would not be used to clear a way for the Russians, a Dutch officer said.
An enclave of about 2,000 Serbs live in the centre of Orahovac, surrounded by ethnic Albanians. Dutch Kfor troops patrol the town.
Earlier yesterday Kfor had tried to overcome the standoff through talks with ethnic Albanian and Serbian community leaders in Orahovac, but that attempt fell apart when the ethnic Albanian representative, Mr Agim Hasku, walked away saying locals had suffered too much during the war for him to order the dismantling of the roadblocks.
"The Russian arrival will destabilise this region," Mr Hasku said.
The Serbian representative, Mr Jovan Djuricic, said he wanted the Russians to come but would prefer they shared responsibility for Orahovac with the Dutch force. Some 150 local Serbs held a brief demonstration during the discussions to demand the entry of the Russian troops. A new round of talks is scheduled for today.
The main roadblock is on the northern route into Orahovac, where ethnic Albanians maintain a long line of parked tractors, trucks and cars which were moved into place on Sunday. The two other roads into town are also blocked, and Orahovac's streets are deserted.
Mr Ramadan Spahiu, one of the protesters who had spent the night in a truck in one of the roadblocks, repeated that the Russians would never be allowed into the town.
"Why have the Russians been given control of our town when their mercenaries fought with the Serbs? Why our town?" he asked.
Another protester, Mr Zijadin Rexha, seemed more resigned. "We knew the Russians were going to replace the Dutch, but we just didn't believe it," he said.
Just a few kilometres along the same road, another checkpoint could be seen. The Russian troops there were wearing body armour and keeping watch. "Why are they doing that?" one soldier asked as he indicated the ethnic Albanians.
"We have nothing against the Albanians. We aren't going to protect the Serbs. We're peacekeepers," he said, adding: "In any case, we're not going to go away."
Kosovan refugees received 21 times as much humanitarian aid from the international community than those in Africa, the European Union's leading aid official, Mr Alberto Navarro, said yesterday.
During the Kosovo crisis, roughly 800,000 Kosovan refugees were given an average of $13 a day each in food and medical aid, while African refugees received $0.6 dollars a day, Mr Navarro told a press conference.