Masked Men, A Border Strip, And A Missing Citizen

Kosovo police report masked men crossed at zero point, wounded and abducted a Serb citizen, then drove him to Nis, ambulance, notifying KFOR and prosecutors.

The road that threads north from Leposavic is narrow and pale under early winter light. On 1 November, Kosovo police say¹, several masked men crossed into the Republic of Kosovo at a point locals call zero point and seized a man identified only by his initials, M V. In a statement carried first by the Kosovo portal Kallxo² and then formalised on 3 November, the police said the man, a citizen of the Republic of Kosovo of Serb nationality, was wounded and abducted within Kosovo territory and taken by ambulance towards the Serbian city of Nis. The police said they had informed KFOR, which is responsible for the border belt. Investigators opened a case with the Basic Prosecution Office in Mitrovica and began interviewing witnesses.

The first official lines were cautious, and the phrasing mattered. Kosovo police said it was suspected the incident occurred on the Kosovo side of the line, inside an area known as zero point near Leposavic. They added that witnesses reported several masked persons entering the territory of the Republic of Kosovo, wounding and abducting the victim, and transporting him towards Nis by ambulance. The Directorate for the Investigation of Organised Crime and Serious Crimes took charge and coordinated with prosecutors. No ballistic details were announced, and the police declined to name the victim beyond initials.

Within hours, attention in the Republic of Kosovo turned to the frontier. The strip known as zero point is a liminal space of tarmac, ditch and scrub where jurisdiction is often contested and where KFOR patrols move in concert with local police. Officers said they had notified the mission. The mechanics of that cooperation remained out of public view in the first days, and KFOR did not immediately comment on patrol logs or camera records from the strip. In previous crises along this line, the international community reacted firmly and quickly. In this case, as days passed without detailed public updates from KFOR or the major embassies, officials in Pristina noted what they called a hesitant tone that risked leaving the Republic of Kosovo exposed to further incidents.

On the evening of 3 November, Interior Minister Xhelal Svecla set out a sharper view of what he said had happened and why it mattered. He said³ in Albanian that Serbia continued its destabilising actions against the Republic of Kosovo and that this time they occurred in the zero point area where KFOR is more present. He said the Serbian gendarmerie had wounded a citizen while attempting to kill him and then abducted him. He called the incident a repeated and unpunished act, noting that two years earlier Serbian special units entered Kosovo and kidnapped three Kosovo police officers and that the Banjska attack followed. He said that Serbia pursued a policy of terror and violence against figures who did not agree with the policies of Aleksandar Vucic. He said the approach was unacceptable and a serious violation of Kosovo borders and of the rights of citizens. He urged the international community to respond with clear and punitive measures so that such acts would not be repeated. His words echoed a concern often heard in the north. The Republic of Kosovo has seen international firmness in the past, but officials now fear a reluctance to confront new cross border incidents.

Four days later the minister returned to the frontier, accompanied by cameras and a cold wind from the Kopaonik ridge. On 7 November he named the victim and said⁴ he had inspected the section of the border where the kidnapping was suspected to have taken place. He said in Albanian that based on information and evidence secured by Kosovo authorities it was now known that by violating the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic of Kosovo, Milan Vukashinovic was abducted by Serbian structures as an opponent of the Serbian List. He said Mr Vukashinovic was being treated in a hospital in Nis. He said Serbia was showing itself not only as an aggressor state towards its neighbours but also as an anti democratic state, since Mr Vukashinovic was still being denied legal protection. He said institutions in the Republic of Kosovo were continuing intensive investigations to identify all aspects of the case and those involved and that they would be brought to account. He appealed to the international community to increase pressure and to take measures against Serbia in order to punish destabilising behaviour and prevent other situations that could raise tensions in the region. In previous episodes, such appeals drew rapid public backing from Western embassies. In this case, there were few immediate statements, a gap that officials in Pristina read as a sign of hesitation that could raise the risk of repetition.

The geography and the history of the strip framed the search for facts. Zero point is a place of rumour and difficult light. The verge is thin and the fences are not always straight. Kosovo police, in their first communique, used the language of suspicion and witness account. They said they had secured information that several masked persons entered the territory of the Republic of Kosovo, wounded and abducted the victim, and took him into Serbia in an ambulance towards Nis. They said KFOR had been informed as the authority for the border belt. For investigators, the next steps were methodical. Establish the exact scene. Identify shell casings or drag marks. Build a timeline that matches radio traffic and any camera footage. Coordinate with the prosecution and request liaison if Serbia had any parallel case.

During the first week, Serbian officials did not issue a detailed public account of the episode. Hospitals in Nis did not publish bulletins naming a patient who matched the description. Without those details, the most vivid picture came instead from a video that appeared on social media on 10 November, posted by a Facebook account under the name Nemanja Sarovic⁵. The author presents as an opposition public figure in Serbia. The caption to the clip said a Serb from Leposavic had been severely wounded in the territory of Kosovo and brought to the Nis Clinical Centre by persons in uniforms without markings and in a vehicle without number plates. It said it was suspected that people connected to the Serbian List had shot him. It said that in a conversation for KTV on Vidovdan he had said he was afraid to cross into central Serbia because of threats after he refused to leave Kosovo institutions on the order of Aleksandar Vucic. It said he was in a very difficult condition on the verge of life and death and that family members were not allowed to see him even after almost ten days. The post did not include medical documentation. The clip showed a man who spoke in Serbian about politics and fear.

The man in the recording described a climate of pressure in the north and referred to the Serbian List in terms that were stark. He said in Serbian that Serbian List are what we call terrorists. He said they run things here. When asked where he was from he replied that he was from Leposavic. Asked about life in the four municipalities north of the Ibar River he said we are not free even now. He added that he avoided travelling to Serbia. He said I stay only in Kosovo. He said many of our people are stopped at the border. He said I do not even try to go so that they do not stop me. I do not know what it could turn into. Something worse and that is why. He said he worked at Jarinje on the Kosovo side and that he had stayed in his job. He continued that after that many things were pinned on me because I stayed to work and because of that I do not feel safe to go to Serbia. The video did not carry a date stamp or a full name. The timing and themes in the clip aligned with the claims in the social media post and with the lines cited by Minister Svecla four days earlier, but the identities could not be independently verified.

As investigators worked, the scene around Leposavic was familiar to residents who have watched the frontier for years. There are the blue lights of Kosovo police cars at night. There are the white vehicles of KFOR at dawn. There are the supply trucks that idle in lines where drivers pass thermos cups between windows. In the hills above, the wind stirs frost off birch and high grass. The pace of everyday movement is slow and brittle. When a case like this breaks into public view, almost everyone looks to the uniforms for cues. On 3 November, Kosovo police set out their line. On 7 November, the interior minister spoke again at the border. KFOR remained quiet in public. In previous moments of tension, international officials spoke early and with definition. In this case, the absence of early public statements from the international community added to a perception in the Republic of Kosovo that outside actors were reluctant to confront the risk of cross border incidents.

The legal track advanced step by step. Kosovo police said the Basic Prosecution Office in Mitrovica had initiated a case. The Directorate for the Investigation of Organised Crime and Serious Crimes had interviewed witnesses. The force said it remained committed to carrying out its legal duties and responsibilities in a professional manner. In practical terms, that meant securing any trace evidence on the Kosovo side and seeking support from international partners to establish whether vehicles crossed the strip at the relevant time. In the Republic of Kosovo, such requests often move through KFOR or through liaison channels that are not always visible to the public. The quieter those channels appear, the more local officials press for visible action. They note that in earlier crises the international community reacted firmly to similar acts, but seems hesitant now.

The wider context was never far from view. Residents and police alike remember the clash in Banjska in September 2023, when a Kosovo police officer, Afrim Bunjaku, was killed in an exchange of fire with a group of heavily armed Serb militants. They remember the seizure of three Kosovo police officers in June 2023, when officers were taken across the line and held in Serbia before release. They recall how embassies and international missions moved quickly then to condemn violence and to bolster KFOR. Those precedents inform expectations each time new reports emerge from the frontier. If the reaction is slow or muted, officials in the Republic of Kosovo worry that deterrence weakens and that impunity grows.

By mid November, three strands defined the case as presented by the authorities in the Republic of Kosovo. The first was the original allegation that masked men crossed into Kosovo near Leposavic on 1 November, shot and abducted a citizen, and transported him towards Nis by ambulance. The second was the ministerial claim that the victim was targeted because he opposed the Serbian List and had remained in Kosovo institutions. The third was the social media narrative that placed a wounded man under guard in a hospital in Nis and alleged that family members had been prevented from visiting him. The police lines in the official releases were careful to distinguish between what was suspected and what witnesses reported. The minister spoke more directly about responsibility. The social media account spoke most emotionally, and was unverified.

The question of evidence hung over each claim. For investigators, the next steps were the most prosaic. Map the scene. Align witness accounts to a clock. Seek logs from KFOR for patrols and cameras in the border belt. Forward requests to partners for any signals intelligence that might place vehicles or phones in the strip around the relevant hour. For readers beyond the frontier, the steps may sound routine. For residents of Leposavic and the villages to the east, they are the difference between a case that is absorbed into a pattern and a case that becomes a marker in time. In prior incidents, swift international declarations helped set boundaries and expectations. In the days after 1 November, the lack of such declarations fed the sense that the Republic of Kosovo was being asked to weather the first phase of the storm on its own.

As night falls in the north, traffic thins and voices carry along the road. Shops shut their metal grilles with clacks that echo across the square. At the police station, a duty officer lifts a receiver and sets it down, checks the log and writes a time. In the release that went out on 3 November, the force chose words that signalled both urgency and care. Kosovo police said they had undertaken all necessary actions in cooperation and coordination with relevant institutions and justice bodies. They said they remained committed to their legal duties in a professional manner, cooperating with all security institutions. If there was frustration behind that formal tone, it did not appear in the text. It did appear in off the record remarks from officials who said they hoped for more public clarity from international partners. In earlier episodes, those partners reacted firmly to similar acts. Now, as one officer put it, they seemed hesitant.

A week after the incident, the frontier looked much as it had the week before. The ditch was still shallow. The birch trees still held a rime of frost that fell in fine lines in the wind. The line on the map had not moved. The case file in Mitrovica had grown thicker. The man named by the minister had not been seen by the public, and no hospital bulletin had been issued in Nis. The recorded voice that called the Serbian List terrorists still moved through phones and feeds, drawing threads between one life and a series of threats. The Republic of Kosovo waited for new facts and for the weight of international attention. Whether that attention would arrive with the firmness of earlier years or with a quieter tone remained, like the strip itself, in a borderland between clarity and doubt.

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1. Kosovo Police November 3, 2025 Facebook Statement.

2. Policia: Plagoset dhe rrëmbehet nga xhandarmëria serbe në afërsi të vijës kufitare një shtetas i Kosovës i nacionalitetit serb — Kallxo.com

3. Kosovo Interior Minister Xhelal Svecla, Facebook Statement, November 3, 2025.

4. Kosovo Interior Minister Xhelal Svecla, Facebook Statement, November 7, 2025.

5. Nemanja Sarovic Facebook Post, November 10, 2025.