Did Kosovar soldiers march in North Mitrovica? No, that's not true: Geolocation analysis by Lead Stories shows that the soldiers in the video were in South Mitrovica and heading in a southerly direction. Tweets from Kosovar and European Union officials also stated that the troops were south of the River Iber.
The claim originated in a video (archived here) by a user claiming to come from Bosnia and Herzegovina, published by TikTok on 06/23/23 under the translated title:
Kosovan soldiers entered North Mitrovica today. War is on our doorstep.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Wed Jun 28 20:08:38 2023 UTC)
Kosovo's Defence Minister Armend Mehaj wrote a post on Facebook on the day the video was uploaded to TikTok. Mehaj wrote, "Today, the Third Regiment completed the conditional march that was planned for our 215 soldiers. The march in Mitrovica has started from the 'Minatori' barracks to the village of Frashër and has returned to the barracks." He also urged people not to believe "the misinformation and fake news."
The European Union's Foreign Affairs High Representative Josep Borrell posted on Twitter the same day. Borell wrote, "Very alarmed by situation in north of Kosovo: extrajudicial arrests of K-Serbs & Kosovo Security Forces marching in South Mitrovica; followed by heavy rhetoric from Serbia."
There are currently tensions between Kosovo and Serbia, with Belgrade calling for a "functional" partition of northern Kosovo. Despite several incidents, there has been no formal declaration of war.
Both the Minatori Barracks and the village of Frashër are south of the Iber River, separating North Mitrovica from South Mitrovica.
(Source: Google Earth screenshot taken on Wed Jun 28 20:57:24 2023 UTC)
Geolocation analysis by Lead Stories was also able to establish the precise location of the march to (42° 53' 00" N, 020° 52' 15" E)
A number of features are visible in the picture, including a slanted roof, three triangular roofs in close proximity, and a white building housing a pharmacy. Lines have been drawn between the map and the corresponding locations from the TikTok video. The camera is facing in a north-northeast direction, and as the soldiers were walking in the opposite direction, they were heading south-southwest.
(Source: Google Earth/TikTok screenshot taken on Wed Jun 28 21:29:38 2023 UTC)
The Google Earth image above has a Google location tag for the Dr. Xheladin Deda High School of Medicine (Sh.m.m. Dr.Xheladin Deda in Albanian). The profile picture for the medical school on Facebook shows the same slanted roof as the one in the video and on Google Earth.
The video also shows a sign for a hospital with an arrow pointing to the right. If we zoom out of Google Earth, we can see that the first road away from the camera leading to the right goes in the direction of Mitrovicë General Hospital (Spitali i Përgjithshëm in Albanian).
(Source: Google Earth screenshot taken on Wed Jun 28 21:04:27 2023 UTC)
A longer version of the same video uploaded by a different user on TikTok shows a local supermarket called Deppo at the start of the video. This is called Deppo 1032 on Google. The Tik Tok Video and the picture uploaded to Google show the same shop windows, wall-mounted air conditioning unit, and sun shade metal support arms.
(Source: Google/TikTok screenshot taken on Wed Jun 28 21:56:25 2023 UTC)
The open-source mapping tool Mapcarta also shows the location of the Deppo supermarket, the hospital, and the pharmacy in the white building.
(Source: Mapcarta screenshot taken on Wed Jun 28 22:07:54 2023 UTC)
