He was for many years the president (i.e., mayor) of Zubin Potok, a predominantly Serb municipality in northern Kosovo, and has served two terms in the National Assembly of Serbia.

[6] Milošević's Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) won the 1996 local elections in Zubin Potok, and his term in office came to an end.

Following the vote, UNMIK leader Bernard Kouchner said that he would appoint prominent members of the Serb community as councillors in these areas.

[13] The Serb community later participated in 2002 local elections overseen by UNMIK and the OECD; the DSS won a significant victory in Zubin Potok, and Ristić was confirmed afterward for another term as mayor.

"[18] In 2007, he remarked that a visit by United States president George W. Bush to Kosovo could only be interpreted as providing support for independence.

In Zubin Potok, representatives of Albanian parties won the election on the basis of an extremely low turnout; due to the Serb boycott, the results were not recognized.

"[23] Riots broke out at two United Nations border crossings near Zubin Potok after the declaration of independence, resulting in the destruction of checkpoints on the roads into Central Serbia.

[25] Later in 2008, Ristić led a protest against both the deployment of the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX) and an effort to re-introduce cameras to the border crossings; he described the latter development as "the first step in re-establishing the customs zone.

"[26] He later became reconciled to the presence of EULEX (following changes to the terms of its mission), although he suspended Zubin Potok's co-operation with the agency in July 2011, charging that it had become "a force of occupation.

This action precipitated the 2011–13 North Kosovo crisis, in which the Jarinje administrative checkpoint was burned down and protestors from the Serb community blocked access to the area's roads over a period of several months.

Ristić said that Kosovo Serbs would use peaceful methods of protest such as barricades and roadblocks,[28] though he added that it would be "impossible to control the situation" if the Priština government or the international deployments introduced the use of force.

[33] Ristić and other Kosovo Serb leaders met with Serbian president Boris Tadić several times during the crisis in a bid to resolve the situation; their talks were unsuccessful.

[35] In May 2012, municipal authorities in Zubin Potok and the neighbouring community of Zvečan organized new local elections, as their mandates from the previous cycle were drawing to a close.

Ristić and other Kosovo Serb leaders met with Tadić's successor Tomislav Nikolić and Serbian prime minister Ivica Dačić prior to the implementation of the new system.

[40] Ristić criticized the absence of Kosovo Serb voices from the negotiations that led to the 2013 Brussels Agreement, which normalized some relations between Belgrade and Priština while leaving larger questions on the status of the territory unresolved.

)[49] Serbia's electoral system was reformed in 2011, such that all parliamentary mandates were awarded to candidates on successful lists in numerical order.

In a 2017 interview with Vreme, he blamed organized crime for shots that were fired on his family home on election night in 2016 (no-one was injured in the attack).

[57] Ristić wrote a letter to Russian president Vladimir Putin in 2018 alleging that the Serbian government was planning to sign a comprehensive agreement with the Priština authorities.

The letter included the statement, "The tragic fate of late Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić [who was assassinated in 2003] is a clear warning to [Vučić] about what happens to those who do not fulfill such a promise."

[60] Like several other opposition parties, the Otadžbina movement adopted a policy of non-participation with Serbian governmental institutions in early 2019 on the grounds that Vučić and the SNS were undermining democracy in Serbia.

[b][66] In August 2022, Ristić said that many Serb families in Kosovo were leaving the area due to increased threats from the Priština authorities and accused the Serbian government of contributing to the problem by its inaction.