On this day 27 years ago, the NATO aggression against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia began

The aggression against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was a precedent and was carried out without the approval of the UN Security Council. According to data from the Serbian Ministry of Defense, during the NATO aggression, 1,031 members of the army and police were killed, while 5,173 soldiers and police officers were wounded.Around 2,500 civilians were killed, including 89 children, while about 6,000 civilians were wounded, of whom 2,700 were children. A total of 25 people are listed as missing. The global public was presented with the claim that the reason for the aggression was a severe humanitarian crisis in Kosovo and Metohija; however, in reality, in 1998 a series of terrorist attacks occurred there, carried out by the so-called KLA, both against the security forces of Serbia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, as well as against numerous civilians, not only Serbs. Important facilities, roads, communication points, the border area with Albania, and later certain towns were targeted.The events in Račak on January 15, 1999, were used as a pretext for the aggression, followed by the failure of negotiations in Rambouillet and Paris. After the Serbian Assembly confirmed that it did not accept the deployment of foreign troops on the territory of Serbia, while proposing that the United Nations oversee a peaceful solution in Kosovo and Metohija, NATO launched air strikes.Spasa DAKIC / Sipa Press / ProfimediaThe order for the attack was given by the then NATO Secretary General, Javier Solana. According to a statement by the General Staff of the Yugoslav Army, more than 20 targets were struck in the first wave on March 24. The first projectiles hit at 7:53 p.m., targeting a barracks in Prokuplje, where soldier Boban Nedeljković was killed&mdash;the first victim of the aggression. This was followed by strikes on Pri&scaron;tina, Kur&scaron;umlija, Batajnica, and Straževica. At the same time, transmitters and communication systems on Jastrebac and elsewhere were targeted, as well as Straževica in Rakovica.Danilovgrad was also hit, where soldier Sa&scaron;a Stojić from Belgrade was killed, along with the Golubovci airport near Podgorica. The area of Kosovo and Metohija was targeted the most, followed by Belgrade, Novi Sad, Ni&scaron;, Leskovac, Sombor, Subotica, Podgorica, Herceg Novi, and Lu&scaron;tica in the Bay of Kotor. NATO began the bombing from ships in the Adriatic, as well as from four air bases in Italy. Although threats of military intervention had existed since the early 1990s, the NATO aggression against the FRY was effectively prepared during 1998. In his book Modern Warfare, Wesley Clark did not hide that planning for NATO&rsquo;s aggression against the FRY &ldquo;was already well underway by mid-June 1998.&rdquo;In the spring of 1998, the border areas of the municipalities of Dečani and Djakovica were zones of mass terrorist activity by the so-called KLA. Dečani was under a months-long siege, without electricity and telephone connections, and heavy fighting took place in April and May. In early June, the so-called KLA announced mobilization, requiring all Albanians aged 18 to 55 to take up arms, indicating an armed uprising. The Yugoslav Army was first involved in operations on June 1, and Dečani was unblocked after several days of fighting. This was followed by largely staged movements of local villagers, who were forced to flee by members of the so-called KLA.In the international public sphere, false claims emerged that 20,000 people had fled to Albania and an additional 8,500 to Montenegro. The authorities of the FRY attempted to respond to what they described as blatant propaganda by organizing visits of diplomats from Belgrade to Kosovo and Metohija, but the subsequent statements of those diplomats were aligned with the policies of their governments, regardless of the actual situation on the ground. At the same time, Western media were engaged in what was described as propaganda with entirely inaccurate information about events in Kosovo and Metohija. Leaders of the United States and the EU simultaneously accused Serbia of alleged ethnic cleansing, war crimes, and a humanitarian catastrophe.Commercial flights by airlines from the FRY were again banned, and on June 8 the UN Security Council prohibited investment in the FRY. On June 11, 1998, NATO defense ministers adopted a declaration on preparing for military intervention in Kosovo and Metohija. NATO troops were deployed in Albania and North Macedonia, and in mid-June NATO conducted military exercises called &ldquo;Determined Eagle&rdquo; along Serbia&rsquo;s border. Members of the so-called KLA attacked Orahovac on July 17&mdash;this was their first attempt to seize a larger town.During the first two days, Albanian extremists occupied key facilities&mdash;the municipal building, post office, and health center&mdash;while telephone lines and electricity supply were cut. Numerous Serbs were kidnapped and killed. The Yugoslav Army and police began the operation to liberate Orahovac on July 18. The town was freed after two days of fighting on July 19, although clashes continued the following day.At least 110 Serbian civilians in that area were abducted starting from July 11. The remains of 42 victims were later found. On October 12, 1998, the NATO Council adopted a decision to activate its forces. The following day, then FRY President Slobodan Milo&scaron;ević signed an agreement with U.S. special envoy for the Balkans Richard Holbrooke, under which OSCE observers were to monitor the peace process in Kosovo and Metohija. It was agreed to reduce the number of Yugoslav Army personnel in the region to early-1998 levels, and that no one would be held accountable for criminal acts committed during the armed uprising.Despite the agreement, after a NATO Council meeting on January 30, 1999, it was officially announced that NATO was ready to launch strikes against the FRY. This was followed by additional deployment of NATO troops in Albania and Macedonia. Negotiations in Rambouillet and Paris from February 6 to March 19 were subsequently staged, and the FRY delegation did not sign the final proposed document. Madeleine Albright, then U.S. Secretary of State and a key architect of the military intervention, openly stated that the demands presented to Belgrade kept increasing to a level that was impossible to accept. Bill Clinton, then U.S. President, later told a delegation of Serbian Americans that he himself would not have signed what had been demanded of Milo&scaron;ević.According to the then FRY ambassador to the UN, Vladislav Jovanović, threats of bombing Serbia had existed for about a decade. During the 11 weeks of the campaign, NATO dropped 22,000 tons of munitions, including 37,000 prohibited cluster bombs and those containing depleted uranium. A large part of the country&rsquo;s infrastructure was destroyed, including industrial facilities, schools, healthcare institutions, media outlets, cultural monuments, churches, and monasteries. In total, it is estimated that around 50 percent of Serbia&rsquo;s production capacity was destroyed.EPA-PHOTO/EPA/STR/ss/fob/owAround 25,000 residential buildings were destroyed or damaged, while 470 kilometers of roads and 595 kilometers of railway lines were rendered unusable. A total of 14 airports, 19 hospitals, 20 health centers, 18 kindergartens, 69 schools, 176 cultural monuments, and 44 bridges were damaged, while 38 were destroyed. One-third of the country&rsquo;s electricity production capacity was devastated.Refineries in Pančevo and Novi Sad were bombed, resulting in far-reaching environmental consequences. NATO also used so-called graphite bombs to disable the power system. The building of RTS in Belgrade was bombed on April 23, when 16 people were killed and the same number injured.The building of Television Novi Sad was destroyed on May 3, World Press Freedom Day. The Chinese Embassy in Belgrade was destroyed on May 7, 1999. After the end of the aggression, authorities in Belgrade estimated the damage at approximately $100 billion. By June 10, 1999, Serbian services had recorded 18,168 aircraft overflights. According to NATO sources, there were 38,004 sorties, including 10,484 strike missions. In the first phase, around 70 combat aircraft participated daily, later increasing to as many as 400 aircraft.NATO did not acknowledge any losses during the campaign against the FRY, but the Museum of Aviation in Belgrade preserves the remains of downed F-117 and F-16 aircraft, as well as drones and cruise missiles.The F-117 aircraft, the so-called &ldquo;stealth&rdquo; symbol of American technological superiority, ended up in a field near the Srem village of Budjanovci. On May 27, 1999, at the height of the campaign, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia issued indictments and arrest warrants for Slobodan Milo&scaron;ević, Milan Milutinović, Nikola &Scaron;ainović, Dragoljub Ojdanić, and Vlajko Stojiljković over alleged crimes in Kosovo and Metohija.The NATO campaign ended after the signing of the Military-Technical Agreement near Kumanovo on June 9, 1999.The agreement was preceded by visits to Belgrade by Martti Ahtisaari and Viktor Chernomyrdin, aimed at exerting additional pressure on Milo&scaron;ević. At the time, the United States and the United Kingdom openly threatened a ground invasion of Serbia. In early June, Viktor Chernomyrdin, Martti Ahtisaari, and Strobe Talbott met near Bonn to prepare for their visit to Belgrade. On June 2, they agreed on a 10-point plan, after which Ahtisaari and Chernomyrdin arrived in Belgrade on June 3. According to later accounts, Chernomyrdin adopted a particularly harsh approach, presenting the proposal to Milo&scaron;ević as an ultimatum.Three days after the signing of the Kumanovo Agreement, the withdrawal of Serbian, that is, FRY forces from Kosovo and Metohija began. The order to cease the bombing was issued by Javier Solana, then NATO Secretary General, on June 10. The last projectiles fell on June 10, 1999, in the area of the village of Kololeč near Kosovska Kamenica at 1:30 p.m., and on a barracks in Uro&scaron;evac at around 7:35 p.m.It was the 79th day of the NATO campaign against Serbia, that is, the FRY. The process was concluded with the unilateral and, according to this account, unlawful declaration of independence of so-called Kosovo on February 17, 2008, which was recognized by countries that had participated in the 1999 campaign.

On this day 27 years ago, the NATO aggression against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia began

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