"Tito didn't let the tanks go to Kosovo; If the Russians had entered..."

"Tito didn't let the tanks go to Kosovo; If the Russians had entered..."

Runic, who is now 93 years old, said that after the liberation of northern Serbia, his unit was supposed to go to Kosovo, but Tito expressly forbade it. The Albanians who were supposed to go to the Syrmian Front revolted.

If the Soviets entered Kosovo back then, we would have altogether different situation today, says Runić, the only tankman of Serbian origin, a member of the Soviet Army.

He was a high school student when the Hungarian occupying forces entered Novi Sad, and he was saved from death by his father who spoke Hungarian and was a reservist of the Austro-Hungarian army in the First World War.

The then seventeen-year-old Runić left Novi Sad and went to Kruševac with his mother. Partisans killed dozens of German soldiers during one action. In retaliation, the Germans randomly arrested and took them to be shot. High school student Runić fled to the countryside and joined the partisan movement.

Somewhere near Zaječar, he met with units of the Red Army. He was a good student and knew Russian, and not long after that he decided to join them.

He was a tankman in the Red Army, and the Russians, as he says, trained him to be a T34 tank gunner in one hour. The driver was Uzbek, and the commander of the tank, who later died at Avala, after which Milan took command, was Russian. There were also Kyrgyz people in the crew.

He also points out that the first battle in which he participated took place somewhere between Čačak and Kraljevo, when the Germans tried to cut off the Russians' front.

Runić directly participated in one of the most important parts of the operation to liberate the capital, namely the rescue of the Old Sava bridge. "That was the only bridge we could use to cross the Sava. My tank was the first, and there were miners in front of us", says Runić.

In the second part of his "Book of Memories", which will soon be published, Runić deals specifically with Kosovo and Metohija, because, as he says, today's events in the southern Serbian province are related to what happened at the end of the Second World War.

"We were supposed to go to Kosovo, that unit of mine, but Tito forbade it. It was my senior lieutenant who said to me: 'Runić, we can't go to Kosovo'. We were not even allowed to enter Croatia. "He ordered, since those who were on the Syrmian front requested it, that we break through the front with tanks, that I do it with three tanks, but that I go back," says Runić.

He was demobilized from a unit of the Soviet Army in 1946, and transferred, as he says, to ours. After that he was in Kosovo. He says that even then he was a witness to the events that influenced the current situation in the south of the country, which are still little talked about.

"Albanians who were supposed to go to the Syrmian front revolted there. It is being disregarded that they joined the Italians and Germans en masse."

According to Kurir, citing Sputnik's writings, Runić ended up on Goli Otok (Barren Island) because of his political views, and upon his return in 1951, he suffered the consequences of being labeled a Goli Otok resident, so he devoted himself to science. Years later, he received the well-deserved post of dean.

Being rehabilitated in the court proceedings, the state partially corrected the damage caused to his reputation.