Kosovo rejoices over Russian aid

More humanitarian aid has arrived at Belgrade airport as Russia continues to deliver emergency supplies to Serbian minorities in Kosovo. President Vladimir Putin insists it isn’t a political gesture. In fact, the deliveries are in response to an official

The food and medication will be delivered to Mitrovica. It’s the biggest remaining Serbian settlement in the newly-independent Kosovo.

With supplies of food and medicine running low, the aid is well received.

This time forty tonnes of corned beef have been unloaded from the plane. It is then passed on to the Serbian Red Cross for distribution. There are more than 11,000 people living on its humanitarian aid in Kosovo.

In the local hospital, some of the wards haven’t been renovated for fifty years.

Dr Aleksandr Bozhovic is one of the doctors who decided to stay in Kosovo after his hospital in Pristina was taken over by ethnic Albanians.

While people living in large settlements such as Mitrovica get help, there are those in more dire need of aid.

“It is rather different to be in a small enclave of about ten houses, when you're surrounded by people who aren’t ready to support you, than it is when you're in a big enclave,” said Ljubomir Miladinovic from the Serbian Red Cross.

Stranded and isolated, it is ordinary Serbs in Kosovo who still pay the price for the legacy of the Milosevic regime.

Although Russian aid will help, no amount will make it a comfortable homeland for them again.