O N MAY 29TH , when a Serb mob attacked NATO troops guarding a town hall in Zvecan in northern Kosovo, alarms sounded in the chancelleries of Europe and in Washington. At least 80 people were hurt, including 30 NATO peacekeepers. By the next day the mob had vanished. But disaster was only narrowly averted: if NATO troops had killed any of the Serbs, the situation would have quickly turned from a nasty scuffle in a Balkan backwater to an incident that Russia and its bots would have exploited, accusing the peacekeepers of killing unarmed civilians. (In fact, the men responsible for the attack were armed and almost certainly belonged to an organised group.) Violence in Kosovo can escalate quickly. Why is the country so fractious, and what prompted the latest unrest?
5月29日，当塞族暴民袭击了北约部队在科索沃北部的Zvecan守卫市政厅时，在欧洲和华盛顿的校长中响起了警报。至少有80人受伤，其中包括30名北约维和人员。到第二天，暴民消失了。但是灾难只被狭窄地避免了：如果北约部队杀死了塞族人，这种情况将很快从巴尔干倒流的令人讨厌的混战转变为俄罗斯及其机器人将剥削的事件，指责维持和平人员杀害徒手的平民。（实际上，负责袭击的人是武装的，几乎肯定属于有组织的团体。）科索沃的暴力行为可以迅速升级。为什么这个国家如此脆弱，是什么引发了最新动荡？
