‘Spying’ Russian Journalist Rejected by Kosovo Back in Serbia

The Russian embassy in Belgrade confirmed on Sunday that Russian journalist Daria Aslamova "is safe and located in central Serbia" after she was detained a day earlier while trying to cross the border from Serbia into Kosovo. The embassy claimed her detention was groundless.

Kosovo Interior Minister Xhelal Svecla on Sunday banned the entry of Aslamova as a "confirmed spy".

"Daria Asimilova, a confirmed Russian spy, engaged in war propaganda in Ukraine, was arrested attempting to enter Kosovo from Serbia," Svecla wrote on Twitter on Sunday, one day after Aslamova's arrest.

He added that this occurred on the same day as the police were attacked by criminal gangs and "only six days after Sunday's incidents" when Kosovo Serbs erected barricades against government measures on license plates and IDs.

Svecla described Aslamova's attempt to enter Kosovo as "irrefutable proof of Russian interference in the north of Kosovo".

Svecla announced on Sunday that Aslamova had been declared persona non grata, prohibiting her entrance for the next five years. 

Aslamova, 52, is a journalist for the pro-Kremlin media outlet Komsomolskaya Pravda. She has also been a war correspondent in Ukraine for TV channel Tsargrad, known for spreading Russian propaganda.

She has also been a war journalist in  Chechnya, Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Ossetia, Tajikistan and the former Yugoslavia.

Radio Free Europe reported that Aslamova was in Kosovo to cover the situation in the Serb-dominated north of Kosovo after locals put up barricades to block roads to two border crossings with Serbia on July 31.

After being questioned by the Kosovo police, Aslamova went back to Serbia.

RIA Novosti media cited Aslamova saying...