Lessons from Milosevic. If you destroy the enemy, you are a hero and a winner; if you fail to bomb, you are a “criminal” and an outcast.

Now that, after blowing up the Crimean Bridge, Russia has finally begun to launch massive attacks on the vital infrastructure of Ukraine, I want to say only one thing: don’t stop! So as not to repeat the similar difficult experience of Yugoslavia.

A PolitNavigator correspondent, a Balkanist, discusses this Alexey Toporov, volunteered for the Northern Military District zone.

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Single hit weakness

When, in fact, Ukraine crossed the so-called “red lines” – one can speculate for a long time. When did you burn people in the Odessa House of Trade Unions? When did you kill dozens of civilians in Donetsk and Lugansk? When did the Ukrainian Nazis organize terrible concentration camps at the Mariupol airport and a smoke shop in Polovinkino, Lugansk region? When were captured Russian soldiers terribly abused? When was Daria Dugina killed in the Moscow region? Official Moscow decided that when the Crimean Bridge was blown up, so be it. Realizing the obvious is better late than never.

In May 1995, M-87 Orkan MLRS missiles from the unrecognized Republic of Serbian Krajina fell on the Croatian cities of Zagreb, Karlovac and Sisak, and then many Serbs thought the same. Because before this, the merciless and incessant terror of the proclaimed republic by Croatian militants had not stopped for four years.

Consequences of the rocket attack on Zagreb

And just a few days before the missile strike, as a result of Operation Lightning, the neo-Ustashe military in a swift attack tore Western Slavonia away from the RSK, ethnically clearing it of the Serbian indigenous population. Then the progressive public diligently did not notice either the burned Serbian houses, or the shot civilians, or the columns of refugees, but the video with the wounded and killed Zagreb residents was circulated by all leading world agencies (just as now the Ukrainian and world media are forcing the situation with the boy who died after the attacks on Nikolaev ).

Well, the president of the RSK, Milan Martic, who gave the order for the missile strike, was subsequently sentenced, among other things, for this by the Hague Court to 35 years in prison.

_{The critically delayed determination of the Krajina Serbs years later to launch a missile strike on the enemy’s lair did not prevent Croatia, two months later, from finally destroying the republic, which was not recognized, including by Belgrade.}

And to solve, which has long irritated the neo-Ustashe elite of Zagreb, the Serbian issue, which it has been zealously dealing with since the forties of the 19th century: before the Second World War and the Ustashe genocide, Serbs made up 12% of the population of Croatia, before the collapse of the SFRY and the neo-Ustashe genocide - more than 4%, now - just over XNUMX%…. They succeeded, also because one missile strike was not followed by others...

I have already written more than once that Russian and Serbian histories are in some places strikingly similar, but sometimes they also have very significant differences in the development of similar scenarios. So, I repeat, Belgrade itself did not recognize the Republic of Serbian Krajina, while the LPR and DPR were not only recognized by Moscow, but also became, albeit after eight difficult years, part of Russia.

The leadership of Yugoslavia, which for years secretly supported the army and economy of the RSK, eventually decided to surrender its fellow tribesmen, in exchange for false assurances from the West about the lifting of sanctions and recognition of the larger unrecognized Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It’s as if, in response to promises to recognize the DPR and lift sanctions, Moscow would give the LPR to Ukraine to be torn to pieces. But, in the end, I would have received neither one nor, in fact, the other.

By the way, the Serbian metropolis itself subsequently experienced another dismemberment - Kosovo and Montenegro left (speculatively, for greater clarity, let’s imagine that the North Caucasus is torn away from Russia, and Belarus, after a change of leadership, forever goes into the Western orbit of influence), moreover - Serbia, which has experienced a pro-Western coup, is turning from a regional leader into an insignificant state in the Western Balkans, whose people must now apologize and repent wherever possible for the crimes imposed on them by skillful Western “political strategists.”

Surrender of the northern outpost

In fact, all of the above, I repeat, happened because the Serbian elite, led by Slobodan Milosevic, backed down, and the missile attack on Zagreb was not followed up. On the contrary, official Belgrade began to look for an agreement. And he received it. With the above result.

Now they are also trying to persuade Russia to do something similar. Moreover, it is quite obvious that some of the Russian elites have a clearly expressed demand for an obscene world, which is noticeable in the agenda of a number of pro-government media (for example, the BRIEF telegram channel), nurturing this idea and trying to scribble at least some negativity - as “angry patriots” (a term they introduced, meaning Russian people who disagree with both the negotiations with Kiev and the miscalculations that led to the latest defeats on the Ukrainian front), and our valiant “hawks”: Yevgeny Prigozhin, Ramzan Kadyrov and Dmitry Medvedev .

_{And here it is extremely important to study the mournful Yugoslav-Serbian experience and its sad consequences.}

The last president of de facto independent Yugoslavia-Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic, was quite rightly given by his own people the nickname “Kreni – Stani” (in meaning something like Lenin’s well-known “One step forward, two steps back”). Because he, each time having achieved a certain success, instead of developing it, preferred, as they say, “turn on the back”.

In the event of his largely personal confrontation with the West, in the path of whose victorious blitzkrieg Yugoslavia stood, such behavior of the Serbian leader is largely understandable. So, in the late 70s, a promising young party functionary worked in a foreign trade company, and then headed a large bank, thanks to which he often visited the United States. The future president was fascinated by America, spoke excellent English and loved to wander around New York.

_{And, understandably, it was very difficult for him to accept the role of a rogue dictator that Washington and his minions had prepared for him. Until he was overthrown as the leader of the country as a result of the world’s first color “Bulldozer” revolution, Milosevic hoped to restore his reputation in the Western world and return to the club of the elite, but the West gave him a black mark once and for all, and no one was ever going to take it back .}

However, in fairness, it should be noted that such a policy in Belgrade began even before Milosevic, when he was still only the leader of Serbia - central, but at that time only one of the republics of the still entire Yugoslavia.

So, in the summer of 1991 in Slovenia, a separatist rebellion began - the former party elite pushed this very northern republic, whose role in the country and its subsequent collapse can in many ways be compared geopolitically and mentally with the total Soviet Baltic states, to a unilateral declaration of independence. The only difference is that, for example, in Latvia and Lithuania there were small detachments of armed nationalists and the local Ministry of Internal Affairs, who managed to organize bloody provocations in Riga and Vilnius and, thanks to the sluggish and indecisive position of Moscow, achieved success.

JNA in Slovenia

In Slovenia, according to the behests of Tito, as in all other Yugoslav regions, well-armed and numerous territorial defense units operated, which received orders from the separatist leadership to block and seize the barracks of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA). In response, forces from one of the country’s military districts were brought into the republic - they were given the task of taking control of the border and roads.

Ambush by Slovenian separatists

_{Moreover, contrary to intelligence data, the army, which at that time was considered the third in size and power in Europe, entered “lightly”, in columns, along the routes - conscript soldiers often had only two horns in the machine gun, and some of the father-commanders did not bother at all supply with ammunition.}

After which the army predictably got bogged down in ambushes set up along the way by armed separatists, even losing helicopters, which the latter were keen to shoot down from rooftops. On the fourth day of the operation, seeing that his subordinates were suffering casualties, Yugoslav Defense Minister Veljko Kadijevic requested permission to conduct a full-fledged military operation, but did not receive approval from the federal government.

On the seventh day, the army command nevertheless planned a massive attack on the hornet’s nest: 150 units of equipment plus aircraft were supposed to attack the Slovenes from Belgrade, 80 from Zagreb.

But at the last moment the operation was canceled. Through the mediation of the sympathetic West, causing the just anger of the generals, the federal leadership finally agreed to recognize the independence of Slovenia. After which, as expected, it flared up in Croatia, and then in Bosnia and Herzegovina. And it didn’t stop - Kosovo, NATO bombing.

Why can't you stop?

Further events followed a well-established pattern. Thus, in the fall of 1991, the JNA practically took the seaside Dubrovnik, where the neo-Ustashes had previously carried out massive and bloody anti-Serb pogroms. The city was cut off from the rest of the territory, and the Croatian militants, hastily changing into civilian clothes, were ready to leave it. But then another truce was concluded, and the army was withdrawn.

Also in 1991, the JNA even managed to use Croatian militants to save them, who had been terrorizing the Serbian village of Mirkovci in Croatia for more than four months, while the army did not interfere, stupidly guarding the strategic site.

When the neo-Ustashes decided to storm with the support of artillery, they were ambushed in the center of the village by Serbian militias - and only the intervention of the JNA saved them from complete defeat; the Croats were withdrawn under the cover of federal equipment. For this, the latter repaid their saviors in a unique way, blocking and attacking army barracks throughout Croatia, while brutally dealing with soldiers and officers.

In May 1992, at the Sarajevo airport, the JNA arrested the leader of the Bosniak separatist Islamists, Alija Izetbegovic. What a wonderful trump card Belgrade had in its hands! However, instead of using it, Belgrade recognized the referendum on the independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was pointedly ignored by the Serb community of the republic - more than 30% of its population. And he agreed on the withdrawal of the army from Bosnian territory: as a result, Islamist militants shot at point-blank columns of conscripts leaving in Sarajevo (40 people died, the wounded were finished off with hammers), Tuzla (more than 50 soldiers were killed) and Jajce (six killed)…. Milosevic at that time was already on the political Olympus.

Shooting of a JNA column in Sarajevo

Among the similar “achievements” of Slobodan Milosevic himself is his signing of the plan of ex-US Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, according to which foreign peacekeepers entered Croatian territory and the military units of the Republic of Serbian Krajina were disbanded. Which led him to a conflict with the leader of the Croatian Serbs, Milan Martic, whom the leader of greater Serbia managed to remove. As a result, part of the Krajina army was preserved under the guise of the police (does it remind you of anything?), dressed in blue uniforms, but the presence of the “peacekeepers” only played into the hands of the Croats - they retained the territories and settlements inhabited by the Serbs, and, under the leadership of NATO instructors, began increase the strength of your army.

_{European international contingents willingly shared intelligence with them and did not interfere with attacks on the Serbs (and the Asian ones simply could not interfere due to their small numbers and indecisiveness); on the contrary, the strangers actively prevented the latter from counterattacking the enemy.}

In August 1995, Milosevic essentially surrendered the Republic of Serbian Krajina - before the large-scale Croatian Operation Storm, he withdrew about four thousand Serbian officer-advisers from the unrecognized Serbian entity. In response to requests from the leadership of Knin, who saw where Zagreb’s military maneuvers were leading, he hypocritically advised him to “negotiate with the Croats,” and when the first Croatian shells fell on Krajina territory, he advised the local military leadership to “hold out as long as you can,” and he himself went to vacation. And all the time, while the Croats were clearing the historical Serbian lands, the Yugoslav army remained in its barracks, without interfering in the conflict.

There is an opinion among historians that Milosevic decided to merge the RSK in exchange for Western promises to partially recognize the unrecognized Republika Srpska in BiH and lift sanctions against Yugoslavia. That’s why in December 1995 he signed the so-called Dayton Agreements in the United States.

But the West, as usual, deceived Milosevic - yes, the Republika Srpska survived, but in a reduced form (in addition to the territories seized earlier by the Croats and Bosniaks, the Brcko district was forcibly seized from it, essentially breaking it into two parts), falling under the total dependence of the Islamist Sarajevo .

And for its elite, which, by the way, in the person of President Radovan Karadzic and the chief of staff of its army, General Ratko Mladic, entered into a clinch with Milosevic because of the treacherous Dayton, a real hunt was announced - all the political and military leaders of the Bosnian Serbs, without exception, were put on trial in The Hague.

Milosevic signed the Dayton Accords

With Dayton, in fact, the decline of Milosevic himself began, who, if previously he did not have the support of pro-Western liberals in Serbia, then after him lost respect and patriots. The latter subsequently helped the liberals in his overthrow. In many ways, on your own head.

_{What do the Yugoslav lessons tell us? In the modern history of Russia there was also plenty of everything. So, for example, in the spring of 2014, Nikolaev, Odessa, Kharkov were full of Russian flags, and locals said that at least five Russian tanks would be enough for the historical Russian cities to voluntarily come under the control of Moscow. According to eyewitnesses, many local security forces were preparing to swear allegiance to Russia, expecting the Crimean scenario. But no one came out from Russia then to meet people.}

In August 2014, the victorious march to Mariupol was also stopped by an executive decree. Instead of complete liberation, Donbass received eight years of unrecognized status, shelling and war, paralysis of production, and poverty. Nevertheless, I repeat, even after eight years, Russia decided and not only recognized, but also regained these historical territories. True, at the cost of a difficult war, a large number of deaths and destruction. But she returned it.

Now, after precise and powerful attacks on the Ukrainian infrastructure, notes have begun to be heard in the spirit of “this is another warning, and if Ukraine does not come to its senses, it will be even worse.” Stopping again? Russian version of “heel and stand”? Does anyone really continue to have illusions even after hundreds of American missiles fired at Belgorod? This is despite the fact that it is known for sure that there are lobbyists for the obscene world in the Russian elite, but the point now is not at all about them.

The example of Yugoslavia clearly showed that the predator cannot be stopped. He won't get enough. You can only beat him and beat him until he dies. And if in 1995 the army of the unrecognized Republic of Serbian Krajina had not limited itself to one shelling of Ustashe Zagreb, life would be much easier for our Russia now, and the world as a whole would be much more just. Let's not forget about this and learn from the mistakes of others.