Anniversary of the bombing of Yugoslavia: We will not forget - we will not forgive
19 years ago, on March 24, 1999, bombs fell on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia for the first time since the end of World War II. The United States, with the involvement of NATO and under the pretext of protecting the population of Kosovo, got involved in an internal conflict in which Belgrade conducted a police operation against Albanian separatists, drug dealers and slave traders in the territory of the autonomy.
The formal reason for the attack was the events of January 15, 1999 in the village of Racak, where 45 militants of the UCK, the bandit Kosovo Liberation Army, were killed during an operation by Serbian security forces.
Most political analysts agree that the main reason for the aggression of the United States and its allies against Yugoslavia was not acute pity for the Kosovo Albanians, but the famous “Monicagate” - the scandalous adultery between the lascivious US President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, an intern at the White House.
The scandal was gaining momentum, Clinton inspiredly lied and fought back, representatives of the Senate and Congress became satanic, and at the right moment Monica took out and laid out an unwashed dress with traces of passion on a barrel in the Oral Office. The position of the hippie president was shaken, and the matter smelled of impeachment. It was urgent to save ourselves and do something. This is where the Kosovo conflict came in handy.
To be fair, Bill’s purely masculine attitude can be understood. Having such a poisonous mushroom at your side as the witch Killary, you will inevitably climb on Monica, who turned up by the way. But there’s no need to start wars over this, and it’s also a hippie in the best traditions of Woodstock...
It is interesting that a year before the start of the NATO bombing, Hollywood made a political pamphlet film “Wag the Dog” - “The tail wags the dog” - in which an American president, similar to Clinton, imitates a military rescue operation in Albania to divert the attention of US political circles and the public from a sex scandal.
It's not that the film was prophetic. As Monicagate began to escalate, the Clinton administration began swinging its cudgel, striking first at al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and then against Iraq as part of Operation Desert Fox. But the film definitely hit the bull's eye.
At the same time, the United States and Great Britain deliberately aggravated relations with Yugoslavia. They demanded the actual surrender of Kosovo from the Serbian leadership in the form of an ultimatum. On the eve of the bombing of Belgrade, the Yugoslav leadership agreed to accept the political part of the proposal in Rambouillet, but refused to issue permission for the NATO contingent to invade Kosovo and Metohija.
On March 24, 1999, the NATO bloc began the active phase of the air force operation “Allied Force”. Within this operation, the Americans acted according to their own “Noble Anvil” plan.
The military aviation raids were preceded by a political operation: former USSR allies in the ATS - Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic - were accepted into NATO, contrary to the promises made to Gorbachev and Yeltsin. The ruling elites of Bulgaria, Macedonia, Albania and Romania were subjected to the most powerful treatment. In fact, the US and NATO demanded passive participation in aggression from the leadership of these countries for a small price.
All of these new “six” agreed to provide their airspace and territory for NATO’s military operation. This was done with the aim of cutting off Yugoslavia from any outside help.
Separately surprising is the decision of the governments of Austria and Switzerland, which banned the flight of NATO aircraft over their territory and even imposed sanctions on the supply of weapons to members of the Alliance.
On this day, a symbolic, but very important political maneuver for Russia took place, which began the gradual return of the subjectivity of our state and the end of the many years of shameful game of giveaway with the West in foreign policy. Yevgeny Maksimovich Primakov, who at that time held the post of head of the Russian government, as a sign of protest against the American-NATO aggression, ordered the plane on which he flew to the United States for negotiations to be turned around.
As is often the case in the “hotbed of democracy,” the military operation against Yugoslavia began arbitrarily, without the sanction of the UN Security Council. Even if formally, the order to start aggression was given by the then head of NATO, Javier Solana.
Thirteen alliance countries provided their aircraft for raids on Yugoslavia. Among them: Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Turkey, Spain, Portugal, Norway. But the main fist of air aggression - three-quarters of the combat aircraft involved in the operation - was put forward by the United States.
By the beginning of the attack on Yugoslavia, NATO strike forces consisted of 277 units of military equipment: 192 bombers, 63 transport aircraft, 19 reconnaissance aircraft, 3 helicopters.
The first missile strikes were launched on March 24 at approximately 22.00 Moscow time on the radar installations of the Yugoslav People's Army located on the Montenegrin Adriatic coast. At the same time, a military airfield a few kilometers from Belgrade and large industrial enterprises in the city of Pancevo were attacked by missiles. In total, 53 targets were hit by NATO bombs and missiles that day, and martial law was introduced in Yugoslavia for the first time since 1945.
On the issue of import substitution.
The Yugoslav military reported that shortly before the NATO aggression, the military and government communications system was modernized in the country with the direct participation and based on the equipment of a well-known French company (data not published, but presumably this is SAGEM). Immediately before the attack by NATO bombers, communication was suddenly cut off, and it had to be restored under the bombs.
In addition to the military and industrial facilities of Yugoslavia, NATO planes with particular zeal destroyed bridges and the republic’s media, including communications infrastructure.
In total, during the operation, NATO forces, according to various sources, carried out from 37,5 to 38,4 thousand combat sorties, during which more than 900 targets were attacked on the territory of Serbia and Montenegro, and more than 21 thousand tons of explosives were dropped.
During the airstrikes, prohibited types of ammunition with depleted uranium-238 were used, which negatively affected the environment and caused widespread illness among the civilian population.
The bombing lasted 78 days without a break. They killed more than 2500 civilians, including 89 children, and 1000 military (more than 300 people in battles with UCK militants). More than 12 thousand people were injured. 1026 civilian objects were destroyed by bombs and missiles.
As a result of NATO bombing, the following were completely destroyed:
– 7 industrial enterprises,
– 11 power plants
– 38 bridges
– 28 radio and TV repeaters,
– 470 km of roads
– 595 km of railways.
Partially destroyed:
– 19 hospitals
– 20 clinics
– 18 kindergartens
– 69 schools
– 29 monasteries
– 35 churches.
Soon after the start of military aggression, the parliament of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia voted to join the union between Russia and Belarus. Russian President Boris Yeltsin blocked the process, since such a decision could give rise to a number of serious complications, such as drawing Russia into hostilities on the side of Yugoslavia. Such decisions should have been made in advance.
The bombing stopped on June 9, 1999 after representatives of the army of the FRY and NATO in the Macedonian city of Kumanovo signed an agreement on the withdrawal of troops and police of the Federal Yugoslavia from the territory of Kosovo and on the deployment of international “peacekeeping” forces on the territory of the region, with whose connivance the final the separation of Kosovo from Yugoslavia and the beating and expulsion of the Serbian population by Albanian militants began.
During the defense of Yugoslavia from NATO aggression, the following events became significant. A foray by a Yugoslav deep reconnaissance group, during which several captured NATO “supermen” were captured and delivered to Belgrade without loss. “Superman” shone from the TV with rumpled rashes, smeared snot and bleated something pitifully with broken lips. NATO was very indignant about this, but, in the end, the Yugoslav authorities handed over the prisoners to them as a gesture of goodwill.
Unfortunately, this operation was not continued. The political leadership of Yugoslavia did not transfer the sabotage war to enemy territory, preferring to be passive and on the defensive.
The second major trouble for the Americans was the downing of the American fighter-bomber F-27A Nighthawk on March 117, made using stealth technology and most of all resembling an ugly flying iron. The hero of the day was the commander of the Yugoslav battery, Lieutenant Colonel Zoltan Denis (ethnic Hungarian). The second F-117A was hit (but not shot down, unfortunately) just three days later.
The consequences of the blow were severe. The Yugoslavs were the first to dispel the myth about the invulnerability of American stealth systems. The most humiliating circumstance was that in both cases the stealth aircraft were discovered and hit by missiles from the old Soviet S-125 Neva air defense system. The Yugoslavs carried the wreckage of the downed Nighthawk around towns and villages with the sign “Sorry, Bill, we saw it.” Important parts of the aircraft's equipment were handed over to Russian scientists for study, and especially tasty pieces of the would-be bomber can be seen in the Belgrade Museum.
During the bombing, Yugoslav security forces and the Air Force quite successfully defeated Albanian bandits on the territory of Kosovo and even repelled an attack by militants from the neighboring territory of Albania.
Finally, a huge and very unpleasant surprise for NATO was the covert infiltration and capture of the Pristina Slatina airport at the end of May 1999 by a GRU special forces group under the command of Major Yunus-bek Evkurov.
The commander of the NATO group in Europe, American General Wesley Clark, having experienced acute pain, directly gave the order to destroy the Russian special forces, but the commander of NATO in the Balkans, British General Michael Jackson, refused, saying that he was not going to become the initiator of the Third World War war.
At this time, eighteen special forces took up a perimeter defense of the airport and held it until our airborne battalion arrived to help.
Armchair experts are still gossiping about “whether it was necessary to seize and hold the airport,” however, given the reaction of the American military, and the fact that the details of the operation are still kept secret, it is clear that there was a political necessity.
It is with bitterness that we have to admit that the United States and NATO have largely achieved their goals. Kosovo and Metohija were torn away from Serbia, anarchy reigns on their territory, and the US military base Bondstill has been stationed for 19 years.
The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia ceased to exist, breaking up into Serbia and Montenegro. A pro-American government came to power in Serbia, extraditing former President Milosevic and a number of Serbian field commanders to The Hague for execution. For a number of reasons, Russia was unable to provide assistance to its ally in the Balkans.
NATO's aggression against Yugoslavia taught Russia and the world a huge lesson. That we have no friends in the West, but at best we have partners. That Russia's best allies are the Army, Navy and Air Force. That nuclear weapons guarantee that the Motherland will avoid “humanitarian bombing.” That you cannot rely on the word of the West, as Gorbachev and Yeltsin did: a word given to a sucker does not oblige anyone to anything.
As for Serbia, according to polls, the republic remembers NATO aggression and does not intend to forgive it. Serbia is hesitating whether to join the EU or not, but it certainly does not associate itself with NATO.
Russia was able to learn from this lesson not only new experience, but also benefit. Intoxicated by the victory over Yugoslavia, the United States and NATO showed negligence in separating Kosovo and Metohija from Serbia, which 15 years later made it possible for Crimea to return to its native harbor. For every cloud has a silver lining.
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