THIS WILL NOT END WELL! PROVOCATIONS FROM PRIŠTINA: Kosovo increases the number of soldiers by a fifth

The Law on the Kosovo Security Force (KSF) from December 2018 envisages the number of 5,000 people under arms, and that level will be reached gradually. Before the law was passed, there were 2,426 people in uniform, and 2,500 in terms of number of seats.

As the Balkan Security Network has already written, the ministry and the KSF had 3,636 active members at the end of 2020, and the plan was to have 4,039 filled formation positions in 2021.

For 2022, the plan is even more ambitious.

It is planned that the Ministry of Defense and the security forces will have 4,879 people on their payroll, of which 4,653 are in the security forces. If they fulfilled the personal plan for this year, that means that in 2022, compared to 2021, the number will be higher by about 20 percent.

That is twice as many as in 2017, when the Kosovo Security Force had just under 2,500 people.

The total budget of the Ministry of Defense and security forces is around 102 million euros, one third of which is intended for salaries.

For 2023, the defense budget is expected to grow to 116 million euros, and in 2024 to around 135 million euros. There is no specification of the number of people, but it is assumed that there will not be more than the 5,000 people provided by law.

This is the largest increase in the number of people since 2008, when the authorities in Priština unilaterally declared independence and formed security forces.

From the beginning, they were declared as lightly armed forces for civil protection. However, again with a unilateral decision from December 2018, a law was passed that creates formal conditions for the creation of the army.