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August 30

  • The commander of Russian paratroopers General Georgy Shpak has said that Russian paratroopers will fulfil their peace-keeping tasks in the town of Orakhovats in Kosovo. An interview with the General has been broadcast by the RIA NOVOSTI news agency today. General Shpak said that the local Albanians supported by so-called Kosovo Liberation Army had blocked all highways leading to the town on the 23rd of this month to prevent the deployment of 750 Russian peace-keepers there. The General described as far-fetched the pretext that the Albanians invented to stage their action; they claimed that Russians would protect only Serbs in Orakhovats. The Russian General said that Russian peace-keepers practiced unbiased attitude to the Kosovo population treating equally all national and religious groups.

  • The Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright have had a telephone conversation to discuss prospects for bilateral cooperation and the basic international issues. Igor Ivanov expressed grave concern about the situation in Kosovo, including continued violence against the non-Albanian population and the expulsion of those people from the province, the inefficient disarmament of the band formations and the provocations the bandits stage against Russian peace-keepers. Igor Ivanov and Madeleine Albright came out for undeviating observance of the UN Security Council resolution on Kosovo.
     
  • On Friday the international peace-keepers found in Kosovo bodies of two old Serbian women, who had been killed. Albanian militants also threw a grenade at a Serbian cafe and set fire to three Serbian homes in the town of Gnilane in the south of Kosovo. The separatists' terror against the Serbian population continues. According to UN data, only 30,000 of 200,000 Serbs have remained in the region since the KFOR was introduced there in the middle of June, others have fled. Yugoslavia accused the Kosovo Force command and the UN mission of inability to ensure security of the Kosovo Serbs and demanded that a Yugoslav contingent be returned into the region to defend Serbs and their holy shrines which is in keeping with international agreements.

August 29

  • Talks between representatives of the KFOR peace-keeping contingent in Kosovo and Albanian demonstrators who are trying to prevent the stationing of Russian peace-keepers in Orahovac were again broken off on Saturday. According to a German representative of KFOR, Albanians have been given time to think the matter over. Under international agreements, the Russians are to replace the Dutch and German units in Orahovac which is divided into Albanian and Serbian parts. A Russian representative said on Friday that force will not be used to put an end to the unlawful actions of the Albanians.
     
  • The Balkans need long-term changes. Such a statement was made by a special representative of the UN secretary general Karl Bildt in an interview for the New York Times on Saturday. He believes the success of the settlement in Kosovo will to a large extent depend on changes in Serbia which he described as the key country of the region. Bildt criticized the United States for refusing to help Belgrade as long as Slobodan Milosevic remains in power.

August 28

  • Russia has demanded a strict compliance with the UN Security Council resolution providing for the disarmament of Albanian militants in Kosovo who continue their campaign of ethnic cleansing and attacks on international contingents within the KFOR force. According to a Russian Foreign Ministry statement, Russian servicemen will respond properly to the attacks. The statement says Russian peacekeepers treat all people in Kosovo equally regardless of their nationalities.
     
  • Yugoslavia has suggested calling a meeting of the United Nations Security Council following the discovery of mass graves of Serbs near the Kosovo town Gnilane, in the American zone of responsibility. Belgrade has accused the United States of building what's termed "death industry" in the Serbian province Kosovo. The American command is charged with direct complicity in the crime since they have been concealing the information for more than a month.
     
  • Several days of talks about the deployment of a Russian peacekeeping contingent in the Kosovo city of Orakhovats brought no results on Friday. Local Albanians backed by the Kosovo Liberation Army have been blocking the approaches to the city to prevent the Russians from being deployed there. Under international agreements the Russian contingent is to replace the Dutch and German units in Orakhovats which is divided into the Albanian and Serb parts.

August 25

  • The Serbian village Grachanitca near the provincial capital of Kosovo, Pristina, was subjected to a mortal attack of Thursday. Ten charges exploded near the houses and a monastery built in 1313 and now is under the protection of UNESCO as a monument of cultural heritage of mankind. The Serb Orthodox Church has described the attack by Albanian extremists as a cynical act. The attack was launched ahead of a great Christian feast, the Assumption of Mother of God. The monastery was named after this feast. According to the Serb Orthodox Church, 50 Serb monasteries have been destroyed or burned by the Albanian extremists in Kosovo.

  • There is no change in the situation in Orahovac in southwestern Kosovo where ethnic Albanians continue to maintain roadblocks in order to prevent the deployment of peace-keepers from Russia in their ethnically divided town. Russian military commanders in the area say they are determined to resolve the stand-off by peaceful means.
     
  • An independent newspaper in Belgrade quotes sources in the governing coalition as saying the early general and local elections called by President Milosevic will take place on November the 7th. The people in Kosovo will not take part because their region is under provisional administration by the UN.

  • A new round of talks is to be held with the Albanians in Orahovac today on the stationing of Russian peace-keepers in that city in south-west of the Serbian province of Kosovo. Taking part will be officers from Russia and Holland and also representatives of the command of the German contingent in whose zone of responsibility the city is located. Starting from Monday the Albanians have been preventing the Russian peace-keepers from entering Orahovac who were supposed to replace Holland's servicemen. The Albanians assert that the Russians sympathize with the Serbs. The talks on Tuesday failed to help remove the obstruction put up on the roads leading to the city. However, deputy commander of Russian peace-keepers in Kosovo, colonel Igor Aleshin told the Russian news agency Novosti that the incident would be settled in the next day or two. He believes the anti-Russian action of the Albanians was planned by the leadership of the Kosovo Liberation Army.
     
  • An international group of experts studying the scale of ecological damage done by NATO's bombings of Yugoslavia, is now examining the area where industrial centers on the Danube river were destroyed. This was announced in Geneva by the press service of the United Nations Environmental Program. On the group are scientists from 8 countries, including Russia. According to the experts, substances from the demolished industrial enterprises are exceedingly dangerous for the health of the people and places of their habitation. Scientists are also worried by the facts that NATO bombs and shells contained low-graded uranium. The uranium dust formed when bombs and shells explode and which enter the human organizm, leads to grave diseases.

August 24

  • The Russian Foreign Ministry blasts unending attempts by ethnic Albanians in Orahovac in southwestern Kosovo to prevent the deployment of Russian peace-keepers in the area by mobilizing crowds and throwing up roadblocks. In a release today, it says such attempts violate Kosovo resolutions by the UN Security Council and the Kosovo peace plan adopted by the G-8.
     
  • The French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrin believes there can be no security in Kosovo before the international contingent there completely disarms the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army. The Kosovo Force, he says, must concentrate on protecting the Kosovo Serbs against violence unleashed by ethnic Albanian gangs. Mr Vedrin was speaking in Pristina today after arriving there together with his colleague from Germany Joschka Fischer. Kosovo meanwhile remains the scene of unending revenge attacks against Serbs.

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  • Russian and Dutch officers are planning talks later in the day with Albanian representatives of the town of Orakhovats who prevented the Russian peace keepers from being deployed there. The Russians were expected to take over from the Dutch servicemen. According to a spokesman for the command of the Dutch contingent, no use of force is planned. He said, however, that the Albanians would eventually have to come to terms with the Russian presence in the area where Serbs are in the minority. The Commander of the Russian Airborne Forces Georgy Shpak has said in Moscow that there is no reason to dramatize the situation. The peace-keeping mission we are responsible for, he said, would be carried out.

August 23

  • The Russian ITAR-TASS news agency has reported that today the command of Russian peace-keepers within the Kosovo force has begun talks with Albanians, residing in the town of Orakhovats, to make them abide by the international agreements on Kosovo. Erlier in the day Albaniais blocked the main highway leading to Orakhovats not to allow Russian peace-keepers into the town. Albanians have apprehensions that Russian peace-keepers can be biased against them in favour of Serbs. Under the international agreement, Russian units are expected to replace Dutch troops in Orakhovats.
     
  • A group of UN experts arrived in Yugoslavia to assess an ecological damage from the NATO bombing of the country. During their first visit in July experts examined the regions where air, soil and water could be polluted through the ruining of industrial facilities by the NATO air strikes. A full report on the state of environment in Yugoslavia will be handed over to the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in September.
     
  • A Serbian opposition leader Vuk Draskovic has accused the West of attempts to create a "greater Albanian state" in the Balkans. Speaking in an interview with the Belgrade TV channel "Studio-B" on Sunday he said that the "West provoked expulsion of all Serbian population from Kosovo" helps attain this objective. And he compared the Western peace-keepers' plan to mark the Kosovo Serbs' homes to allegedly better protect them with the way the German Nazis marked Jews with yellow stars.

August 22

  • The UN administration in Kosovo has opened an academy in Vucitrn outside Pristina to train a regional police force raised from all sides of the province's ethnic divides. Of the nearly 20 thousand applicants, only 4 hundred made it in, including 74 women. Over 150 of the fresh cadets are former members of the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army. A resolution by the UN Security Council calls to create a Kosovo police force of at least 3 thousand. The training will be provided by instructors from western countries including Great Britain and the United States.

  • The Russian peacekeeping troops in Kosovo are preparing for patrolling the town of Orahovac in the south-west of the region to replace the Dutch troops serving there. Serbs and Gypsies are waiting for the arrival of the first group of Russian soldiers on Monday. An inhabitant of Orahovac, Milos Vitosevic, said in an interview with Reuters news-agency that the non-Albanian people of the town did not regard NATO troops as their defenders. He said the Dutch before handing over their duties to the Russians had made all Serbs surrender their weapons while ethnic Albanians kept their arms. He said that was not just.
     
  • A member of the leadership of the governing Socialist Party in Serbia, Jivorad Igic, accused NATO troops in Kosovo of conniving at genocide of the non-Albanian people. He said the crimes committed by ethnic Albanian extremists in the presence of 40 thousand NATO armed to the teeth were even more atrocious than those of Nazi troops during the second world war.
     
  • There's been a complete split in the opposition in Serbia. The Leader of the Renewal movement, Vuk Braskovic, said on Saturday that his party had ceased all contacts with the radical Democratic Party 1ed by Zoran Djindjic - an irreconcilable opponent of the Yugoslav President, Slobodan Milosevic. Mr Draskovic again called for changing the government in Serbia by peaceful constitutional means.

August 21

  • The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata has told a news conference in Tokyo that of the approximately 200 000 ethnic Serbs who made their home in Kosovo in spring this year, some 170 000 have by now left the Yugoslav province. According to the High Commissioner, the forcible ousting of these new refugees from Kosovo by directly attacking them or using other forms of intimidation places the United Nations into a predicament. If we help them to leave, Sadako Ogata says, we become accomplices in "ethnic cleansing".
     
  • On Friday the prosecutor's office of the Serbian city Valjevo demanded that the local judicial bodies should initiate legal proceedings against 14 members of the NATO countries' leaders and against NATO proper for committing war crimes. The demand states that the leaders of 14 NATO countries and of the alliance proper "are response for a criminal act, - a war crime against the civilian population". Some of the leaders that are charged with having committed these war crimes are the US President Bill Clinton, the US Secretary of State and Defence Secretary Madeleine Albright and William Cohen, British Prime-Minister Tony Blair, French President Jacque Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

August 20

  • Russia has warned about the dangerous turn the situation in Kosovo may take due to NATO's attempts to reconsider the Helsinki agreements. The main reason for the aggravation of the situation is that the peacekeeping operation is unfolding according to NATO's scenario, not that of the United Nations, and that western nations dismiss Yugoslavia's sovereignty and its participation in resolving the conflict. The opinion comes from the Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Leonid Ivashov. The Russian Foreign Ministry special envoy Boris Mayorsky has said in turn that by today KLA militants were supposed to hand 60 percent of weapons but haven't done so. And the weapons handed wind up in the hands of the extremists. Despite the presence of the international forces, the foreign ministry official said, Kosovo is gripped by the continuing bloodshed, looting and violence.
     
  • Foreign Minister of Yugoslavia Zhivadin Jovanovic has requested an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss the alarming situation in Kosovo. He pointed out that the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army is committing crimes every day and its victims are the non-Albanian population of the province. Albanian extremists continue to destroy houses, churches and historical sites of Serbia and to plunder the property and belongings of the Serbs. The Yugoslav Foreign Minister accused the UN mission and the international forces in Kosovo of failing to do anything about this.
     
  • The commission of the Lower House of Russia's parliament for investigating the crimes committed by NATO during the military campaign against Yugoslavia intends to forward its findings to the UN International Tribunal in the Hague. The chairman of the commission Nikolay Ryzhkov said that when taking part in the program of the Voice of Russia - "Vis-a-vis with the World". He has recently returned from a trip to Yugoslavia. One purpose of the trip was to estimate the damage done to the economy of that Balkan country by the NATO bombing raids. He put the damage at about a hundred billion dollars.

August 19

  • Two Italian soldiers guarding a Serbian Orthodox church were wounded overnight when their unit came under fire by a groups of armed Albanian separatists. 70 Orthodox temples have been destroyed and 200 ethnic Serbs , Gypsies and other non-Albanians killed and about 40,000 houses either torched or looted since the international peacekeepers entered Kosovo on June 12. On Wednesday the Yugoslav government demanded that the KFOR take action to stop the violence. Russia has made a similar appeal to the United Nations Security Council.

  • Three Serbs were wounded when a hand grenade exploded, Tuesday night, in the Kosovo city of Gnilane. The explosion was reported in a US-controlled area but US peacekeepers failed to catch those who hurled the hand grenade. More Serb killings are reported in Kosovo. More ethnic Serbs are fleeing their homes in that province of Serbia.
     
  • The World Health Organization is warning the international community of the possible spread of epidemic diseases in Kosovo. It said in Geneva that cases whose symptoms look similar to those of poliomyelitis, hepatitis A and haemorrhagic fever had been recently reported in that province of Serbia. The NATO bombings of Yugoslavia's oil refineries and chemical plants did great damage to the environment. The water supply system was damaged. The Albanian and Serbs exoduses have contributed to the spread of various diseases.
     
  • Thirty Russian border guards will join the peacekeeping efforts in Kosovo. They will be manning checkpoints on the Kosovo border of Yugoslavia as members of a civilian and special police contingent, which will be dispatched to Kosovo under the auspices of the United Nations.

August 18

  • Three Serbs in Gnilane in Kosovo received injuries in an explosion of a hand grenade tossed into their house in the early hours of Wednesday morning. The attack was the work of local ethnic Albanians. American troops in control of the area did nothing to apprehend the attackers. On Tuesday, this country harshly criticized the Kosovo Force and the UN administration in Kosovo for their failure to put an end to the continuing campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Kosovo Serbs. On Wednesday morning, it asked the Security Council of the UN to sanction tough measures against the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army, the perpetrator of most of anti-Serb attacks.
     
  • Russia's foreign ministry has said that the Albanian extremists, with their actions, which are a gross violation of the resolution of the UN Security Council, are sending a challenge to the world community. Its statement that was released on Tuesday, noted that Moscow is concerned over the fact that the disarmament of the Kosovo militants is proceeding very slow. The document says that regardless of the clear-cut demands of the UN Security Council, violence is gaining momentum in the Kosovo Province, the murders of civilians are increasing in number, and , besides, acts of arson and plunder, which are being committed against the non-Albanians in Kosovo are the norm. In fact, ethnic cleansing is going at full steam in Kosovo. Russia's foreign ministry has qualified this as a result of the policy, aimed at the pacification of the non-Albanian separatist, which is being implemented by the Western countries. The Russian foreign ministry believes that the KFO forces will be able to rein in the terror in the Kosovo Province.

August 17

  • The UN High Commission for Refugees is helping both the Serbs and the Gypsies leave Kosovo, when it is impossible to ensure their safety in view of the terror that was unleashed by the Albanian extremists. This was acknowledged by the official spokesman for the Geneva headquarters of the UN High Commission Fernando del Mundo, when he was giving an interview to the ITAR-TASS correspondent. He says that approximately 100 people were evacuated from Kosovo with the help of the UN High Commission officials. Fernando del Mundo has ignored the opinion of some of the observers that evacuating the Serbs and the Gypsies, the UN Commission is helping the Albanian extremists carry out ethnic cleansing.
     
  • A 14-year-old girl and a 16-year-old youth were killed in Kosovo on Monday during the mortar fire that was opened by the Albanian extremists in the Serb Klekot Settlement, situated in the sector of responsibility of the American contingent, which is part of the KFO force. This is what a spokesman for the peace-keeping forces in Pristina said earlier today. 5 Klekot residents were wounded. Observers note that after the deployment of the NATO forces in Kosovo and the withdrawal from that province of the Yugoslav army and police units the Albanian extremists sharply stepped up their activities there.

  • The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is seriously concerned over the position of Serbs in Kosovo. The Commissioner's special envoy to the Balkans Dennis Macnamara told the BBC television that an ever greater number of Serbs have to be evacuated from the province because of the increasing terror on the part of Kosovo Albanians. More than 180 thousand Serbs have fled Kosovo since international peace-keepers entered it.
     
  • Yugoslav leaders have demanded that the United Nations mission and the KFOR force implement its commitments provided by the UN Security Council resolution. A report released after the Yugoslav government's meeting says unprecedented atrocities have been committed against Kosovo's non-Albanian population under the cover of the UN in the past two months. The Yugoslav leaders demand a complete disarmament of the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army and a return to the province of a limited contingent of Yugoslav troops and police.

August 16

  • By its anti-government actions, the radical opposition is provoking a civil war in Yugoslavia, commander of the 3rd army corps Neiboisha Pavkovich said in the interview to one of the Belgrade-published newspapers. General Pavkovich expressed support for the government and made it clear that the army won't let the opposition displace President Slobodan Miloshevich by force. According to the general, the NATO forces in Kosovo cannot restore peace in the Serb province or fulfil the corresponding resolutions of the UNO. He charged the Albanians authorities with organizing acts of violence on the border with Kosovo and infiltrating the Serb province.
     
  • Moscow will cooperate with NATO and will remain Yugoslavia's strategic partner. This came in an interview with Russian State Television on Sunday by the acting Russian prime-minister Vladimir Putin. He stressed that Russia had its own geopolitical interests and would defend them. 
  • An Italian government delegation that has visited Kosovo has called for an end to crimes against Serbs. When the delegation members met the UN special envoy to Kosovo Bernard Couchnaire and the moderate Kosovo Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova they accused Albanians of stepping up the campaign of violence. They demanded that the KLA should start disarming itself at once, as provided for by a relevant UN resolution.
     
  • Meanwhile the plight of national minorities in Kosovo, above all Serbs and Gypsies, is growing worse by the day. According to London-based officials of the United Nations High Commissioner's Office for Refugees, the Serbian population in Kosovo's administrative centre Pristina is about to die a hungry death. The continued repressions by the Kosovo Liberation Army and various gangs prevent Serbs from walking outdoors and have turned them into actual hostages of the separatists. The plight of Kosovo Gypsies is just as desperate if not worse.

  • The European Commission should work out urgent measures to be taken against Albanian organised crime in Europe. This comes in a communique by the Belgian Interior Ministry circulated in Brussels on Sunday. The propaganda campaign waged during the war against Yugoslavia created the image of "Kosovar martyrs" with public opinion in the West, an image that's exploited by Albanian mafia groups that have taken root in Europe to formerly raise funds for the KLA and to currently control, the communique stresses, the prostitution and drug trafficking markets in Belgium.

August 15

  • Albanian terrorists pressing ahead with their murderous campaign of ethnic cleansing must encounter more resistance on the part of the KFOR international force. The announcement was made by the Italian Foreign Minister Lamberto Dini in an interview with the "Repubblica" newspaper. Our soldiers, he said, are not there to hand the region over to the terrorist Kosovo Liberation Army. Mr.Dini voiced opposition to Kosovo's independence from Yugoslavia ascribing that as a destabilizing factor for the whole of the Balkan region.
     
  • The 2 thousand Serbs have taken to the streets in the city of Kosovska Mitrovitsa demanding that the KFOR international force guarantee them protection from violence on the part of Albanians which continues unabated throughout the province. In Prizren two Albanians have been arrested on charges of setting fire to Serb houses. Two more have been arrested in the town of Istok for attacking a Serb woman. A mini bus has been detained in Orekhovats with 120 fire-arms discovered in it.
     
  • Some 180.000 Serbs left Kosovo fearing brutalities on the part of the Albanian extremists since the middle of June after the end of the 11 week long NATO combing of Yugoslavia and the introduction of international forces into the province. These figures were given at a news conference in Belgrade by a high-ranking representative of the UN High commissioner for refugees Denis MacNamara. He believes the Serbian refugees will not return to Kosovo until they are guaranteed reliable safety.

August 14

  • One Russian peacekeeper was wounded on Thursday in Kosovo. An unidentified sniper shot and wounded hum near the city of Gnjilane. The wounded serviceman was taken to the Russian hospital near Pristina. This is the second such case in Kosovo. The first wounding of a Russian peacekeeper was reported in the city of Kosovska Kamenica last week. Kosovo Albanians also assaulted French, British and US peacekeepers.
     
  • The international peacekeeping force KFOR and international police force, deployed in Kosovo, have been told to arrest the people that pose a threat to public order and security. The order to this end has been issued by the head of the United Nations mission to Kosovo Bernard Couchnaire. The measures due to be taken are expected to put an end to violence against Serbs, and to Albanian attacks on international peacekeepers.

August 13

  • The Italian Foreign Minister Lamberto Dini has expressed deep concern over the facts that the Kosovo Liberation Army has failed to comply with the international community`s demands and Serbs continue to flee from the province. In a statement released in Rome he urged that the peace-keeping force, KFOR, persistantly interfered the situation and prevented violence. Meanwhile, a leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army Hashim Tachi told press that the army would remain and perform police functions.
     
  • The British servicemen in the KFOR exchanged fire with the Albanian extremists and arrested four in the suburbs of Pristina on Thursday. They caught the Albanians at a moment when the latter were getting ready for an attack on Serbian village.

  • UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has stated that the province of Kosovo should remain multi-ethnic and that it is necessary to put an end to Serbs and other minorities being driven out of it. Speaking in Geneva, Kofi Annan warned extremists against settling accounts. He likewise pointed out that the international security forces, the head of the UN mission in Kosovo Bernard Kushner and his staff should do everything to prevent people seeking to drive Serbs out of the province - from having "freedom of action".
     
  • Russia wants the UN mission for the affairs of the interim administration in Kosovo to begin its work in the province as soon as possible, such a statement was made by deputy permanent representative of Russia at the United Nations Gennady Gatilov in an interview for the ITAR-TASS news agency. He stressed the pressing need to ensure law and order in Kosovo and adequate security for all ethnic groups in the province. Without that, he said, it is impossible to stop the exodus of the non-Albanian population from Kosovo.
     
  • In the outskirts of Pristina, the administrative center of Kosovo, British peacekeepers exchanged fire with Albanian extremists on Thursday. Four of the extremists were arrested and two were wounded. The British patrol found the Albanians preparing to open fire on a Serbian village.

August 12

  • The Russian Emergency Ministry troops have started an operation to demine and ecologically decontaminate a number of facilities and areas in Kosovo. The operation is part of a wider humanitarian assistance program for Yugoslavia. Russia's Emergency Situations minister Sergei Shoigu said as much when briefing the media after meeting with President Boris Yeltsin in the Kremlin on Thursday.
     
  • In the United States, the Nobel peace prizewinning author Eli Wiezel has urged NATO to stand up for the rights of the ethnic Serbs in Kosovo. A few days ago Mr.Wiezel, himself a victim of the Holocaust whose entire family perished in nazi extermination camps, returned from Yugoslavia, Macedonia and Albania where he was on a mission entrusted him by President Bill Clinton. Mr.Wiezel said he was saddened by the fact that the Albanians in Kosovo are now doing to the Serbs exactly what the Serbs, led by their President, Slobodan Milosevic, once were doing to them. He called on the West to assume an equally uncompromising stand against the Albanians.

  • The United Nations has voiced concern over what ethnic Albanians are doing to ethnic Serbs and gypsies in Kosovo. A spokesman for the United Nations Secretary-General Fred Ekhard has told newsmen that most Serb residents of Kosovo have fled their home province for fear of Albanian extremists. Ekhard said 18,000 Serbs had fled the administrative capital of Kosovo - Pristina - and the 2,000 Serbs who were still living in Pristina could hardly feel safe.
     
  • Ten Albanians who put fire to a house that belonged to ethnic Serbs in the village of Obelic, have been placed under arrest. Peacekeeping forces have detained three suspects in the arson case. Voice of Russia correspondents said Wednesday that five people who attempted to kidnap an ethnic Serb in Prisren, in southern Kosovo, have been arrested. Four explosions shook Kosovska-Mitrovitsa Wednesday. As many as sixty men, many of them wearing Kosovo Liberation Army uniforms, have been detained in the city of Gnilan, in eastern Kosovo. Up to 20 guns, as well as cold arms, have been taken away from them.

August 11

  • The deployment of the Russian military contingent in Kosovo is over and the rest of the hardware will be there by August 15th. The announcement was made by General Vladymir Kulikov, a spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry. In his words, Russian servicemen are already performing peace-keeping functions in the region. According to General Kulikov, Russian peace-keepers in Kosovo have reached understanding with soldiers of the NATO-led international force. The number of Russian peace-keepers is 3600 men.
     
  • A ceremony to hand the first consignment of relief supplies to the people of Yugoslavia took place in the Yugoslav embassy in Moscow today. The consignment delivered yesterday arrived from the Belgorod region to help Yugoslavians who suffered from the conflict. The ceremony was attended by the Yugoslav ambassador to Russia Borislav Miloshevic, embassy employees, Archbishop of Belgorod and Starooscol Ioann and representatives of the Belgorod administration. Humanitarian assistance is also expected from the Smolensk and Irkutsk regions.

  • Extremists in Kosovo continue their murderous campaign of ethnic cleansing against all people who are ethnically non-Albanian. According to the command of the Kosovo Force, unknown attackers shot a Serb couple after bursting into their house in Prizren early on Monday. The man was killed, his wife is in a serious condition in hospital. Other assailants in Prizren abducted two Gypsies the same night. In Gnilane, a Serb woman and her two-year-old daughter received bullet wounds when they came under gunfire from an ethnic Albanian gang.
     
  • Unknown gunmen fired on two units of Russian paratroopers in Kosovska Kemenica on Tuesday. The Russians returned fire forcing the attackers to retreat. In Pristina, a British patrol came under small arms fire from a speeding car. There were no military casualties in either attack.
     
  • Russia's Defence Minister Igor Sergeev will today present government awards to the servicemen who in the middle of June moved speedily from Bosnia to Kosovo. This has been reported by the ministry's press service. Among those awarded will be the men who had distinguished themselves when taking up positions at the Slatina airport. At present there are 3600 Russian servicemen in the international peace-keeping forces in Kosovo.

August 10

  • Ethnic Albanian gangs continue to attack international soldiers and Serbs throughout Kosovo. According to a British officer of the Kosovo Force, a well-organized group in the town of Lipljan tosses grenades into Serb-owned houses, kills Serbs and liberally loots their property. Last night saw at least two such attacks, with several of the attackers now detained. In the town of Luzane, rampaging separatists killed a 78-year-old Serb women. Her family had to bury her body in their garden for fear of going out. On Monday, an ethnic Albanian mob hailed rocks at French cordons blocking it from crossing a bridge to a mostly Serb-populated neighbourhood in Mitrovica in northern Kosovo. One French soldier received serious head injuries in the incident. The trouble in Mitrovica has been going on since Saturday. The French Defence Minister Alain Richard is arriving today to try to sort out the situation there. In Gnilane, unknown gunmen launched two gunfire attacks against Russian units last night. There are no reports of casualties from the scene.

  • Two consecutive days of clashes in Kosovska-Mitrovitsa between French peace-keepers and Albanians have shown that the KFOR tactics towards the KLA is wrong. According to the RIA Novosti news agency the peace-keepers did not demand an immediate and overall disarmament of the militants. Though the French contingent refrains from acknowledging the KLA's involvement in staging anti-Serb demonstrations in Kosovska-Mitrovitsa it is a fact that the demonstrators dispersed only after interference from the so-called KLA Commander in the town Rakhman Rame and the self-styled administration head Basharm Redzhep.
     
  • The KFOR force has arrested 59 Kosovo Albanians and confiscated a great number of weapons in an operation it carried out in the past 24 hours to stop ethnic violence. But terrorist acts against Serbs, Gypsies and other ethnic minorities in Kosovo continue with two Serb women receiving bullet wounds as their houses in Pristina came under fire in the early hours of Monday morning. A ten-year-old girl is reported to have received a stomach wound as a grenade was thrown into a Gypsy house in the village of Lyplyan south of Pristina.

August 9

  • A French serviceman was seriously injured with a stone on Monday in clashes with Kosovo Albanians who for more than 2 days have tried to break through to the Serbian part of Kosovska Mitroviza. The city is divided into two parts, and on Saturday, about 150 bellicose Albanians tried to cross the bridge into the Serbian part of the city. Earlier this month, a crowd of about one thousand Albanians staged a threatening demonstration in the city of Kosovska Kameniza where American and Russian servicemen are deployed.
     
  • NATO soldiers patrolling near Gnilane in Kosovo have discovered a cache of arms and food amassed by the Kosovo Liberation Army. The discovery proves that the separatists continue to ignore their obligations to disarm. They should have laid down all small arms in their possession as long as a month ago.

  • The French KFOR troops in the Kosovo city Kosovska Mitrovica are getting ready to deal with more unrest that started during the last weekend. According to Albanian extremists, this Monday they plan to gather a crowd for a third time to break into the Serb-populated part of the city. The peacekeepers foiled the two previous attempts to this end that Albanian made on Saturday and Sunday. Albanians say they want to stage their march because they allegedly have no jobs in their own part of the city.
     
  • Meanwhile in the American sector of Kosovo Albanians plundered and burnt down a Serbian village that the residents had fled shortly before. US peacekeepers were in no rush to prevent the looters, so these managed to pillage and burn down over 40 homes. Dozens of thousands of Serbs have already left Kosovo in a bid to escape acts of violence by Albanian extremists.
     
  • Belgrade has accused the West of that the latter seeks to manipulate the problem of guaranteeing ethnic minorities' rights to further split Yugoslavia. The accusation was made in an interview with the Yugoslav news agency TANJUG on Sunday by the minister for Serbia's national minorities Ivan Sedlak. To prove his point the official pointed to the West-inspired demands by ethnic Hungarians in Serbia and in Hungary proper that the Serbian province Vijevodina should be granted autonomy.

August 8

  • The commander of the German contingent in Kosovo speaks about smoothly functioning liaison with the Russian soldiers in his sector and praises Russian troops for their good drill and rapid response to everything that requires meddling. In an interview with BERLINER ZEITUNG today, Brigadier General Wolfgang Sauer also painted a picture of infrastructure chaos throughout Kosovo. All essential services are in ruin and local administration has yet to take off.
     
  • There have been new clashes between French troops and ethnic Albanians in Kosovska Mitrovica north of the capital Pristina. The soldiers were defending a bridge across a local river against a crowd of ethnic Albanians marching to loot and burn a neighborhood populated by Serbs on the opposite bank. The mob ebbed off but said it would repeat its pogrom attempt. The town's mayor Bairam Redjepi, appointed by the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army, warns of further disturbances unless the UN administration in Kosovo accepts his demand for ethnic Albanians in Mitrovica to be allowed to freely cross into the Serb neighborhood in search of jobs.

  • A representative of the French contingent serving with the international security force in Kosovo, KFOR, has accused the ethnic Albanians of organizing disturbances on the bridge across the Ibar river dividing the town of Kosovska Mitrovica into the Albanian and Serbian sectors. French troops serving with KFOR detained a group of ethnic Albanians on Saturdays. Later more ethnic Albanians arrived on the bridge and the crown increased to one thousand. Twenty French armed personnel carriers and dozens of soldiers and police arrived and averted hand-to-hand fighting. The incident lasted for more than two hours and tension was so high that about forty French soldiers had to bloc the area on armed personnel carriers and open fire into the air. Four ethnic Albanians were arrested.

August 7

  • Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic has charged NATO with attempting to undermine Yugoslav stability from within by using corrupt politicians. Addressing Serbs in the diaspora on Friday in Belgrade he described the demand by the opposition for his resignation as the continuation of NATO's aggression. NATO is using opposition politicians to achieve the objective, which its intensive bombing of Yugoslavia for 11 weeks failed to do said Mr. Milosevic. He also accused NATO peace-keepers of a dereliction of their duty of protecting all the ethnic groups in Kosovo. Mr. Milosevic stressed that Kosovo remains a part of Serbia and that Yugoslavia would never agree to a change in that status.
     
  • Serbian interior minister Vlaiko Stoilkovic has said that his country's security forces can use force to prevent attempts at fomenting internal trouble by foreign agents using opposition politicians. The press in Belgrade the Yugoslav capital said that Mr. Stoilkovic was addressing police officers on Friday. Mr. Stoilkovic spoke about NATO's inability to guarantee law and order in the Serbian province of Kosovo, and recalled that law and order prevailed in the province when Serbian police were in charge. The property of Serbs and Albanians were equally protect he said.
     
  • In a memorandum addressed to the president of the UN security council, the Yugoslav government has charged KFOR and the UN civilian administration in Kosovo of failing in their duty of creating a normal and conducive climate for all people living Kosovo. The memorandum says that the ineffectiveness is fraught with serious consequences for Serbian and Montenegran populations in that Serbian province as well as for other non-Albanians. There are rampant incidents of killing of civilians, kidnapping and ethnic cleansing in Kosovo said the memorandum. The document also drew attention to the point that Security Council resolution 1244 clearly guaranteed the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Yugoslavia. The memorandum says that the Security Council did not mandate UN Secretary General's special envoy in Kosovo to take a unilateral decision on which Yugoslav laws should apply to Kosovo.
     
  • KFOR commanders in Kosovo have expressed deep concern over the increased number of attacks against peace-keepers including Russian soldiers. The concern was voiced on Friday by a spokesman of KFOR major Jan Joosten who confirmed incidents of 3 night attacks by Albanian militants on a Russian observation post as well 3 other exchanges of fire with servicemen from other countries. Similar incidents occurred near the towns of Prizren, Pec and Jakovic. According Major Joosten KFOR men have detained 15 people who took part in the series of attacks. A Russian soldier was wounded in the early hours of Friday near the village of Kemenits during an exchange of fire.
     
  • The first UN police officers will soon start round-the-clock patrol in Kosovo to maintain law and order. A spokesman of the UN civilian administration in Kosovo revealed this on Friday. About 3 thousand police officers from different countries including Russia, are to be deployed in that Serbian province and plans are underway to create local law enforcement bodies.

August 6

  • The commander of the US battalion of the international peacekeeping contingent in Kosovo, General John Craddock, says it is not infrequently that ethnic Albanians kidnap and kill ethnic Serbs, steal Serb property and put to fire houses that belong to ethnic Serbs, in the area under his control. Contrary to what is being said about the situation in Kosovo, General Craddock said ethnic Serbs kept fleeing their homes. An average of two murders a day, or 12 to 15 a week, are reported in the United States zone of responsibility. Five to six arson cases are reported daily. Department of State spokesman James Rubin says the United States is unable to insure the safety of every representative of the non-Albanian minorities of Kosovo.
     
  • A group of Russian peacekeepers in Kosovo have come under fire and had to return fire. The Russian news agency Novosti says the incident took place in the area under US control, Wednesday night. Albanian marchers clashed with ethnic Serbs in the city of Kosovska Kametitsa. Ethnic Albanians opened fire in several directions, inclusively on a Russian patrol, and a Russian checkpoint, near what used to be a police station. A hand grenade was hurled into the police station yard. One patrolman was wounded. No casualties were reported among those who manned the checkpoint. The Russian fire was aimed in the air.

  • The UN High commissioner office for refugees is very much concerned about the Serbs in Kosovo. Such a statement was made in Pristina by a representative of that office. He said that after getting acquainted with the situation in 76 Kosovo villages, representatives of the UN High commissioners found out that the exodus of the Serbs from Kosovo continues.
     
  • Britain's parliamentary committee for peace in the Balkans has called on Prime Minister Tony Blair to come out in defense of the Serb and Gypsy population in Kosovo. In its statement the committee pointed out that the number of violent acts against those minorities have assumed a threatening proportion. Actually there are systematic repressions against the Serbs and Gypsies. NATO doesn't protect them, though when establishing its presence in Kosovo it said it does that to prevent violence. According to some authoritative international organizations, up to 80 per cent of the Serbs and Gypsies living in Kosovo left the province since international forces were introduced into the province, and NATO servicemen make up the backbone of those forces.

August 5

  • Addressing foreign journalists during a visit to the town of Kosovska Mitrovica on Thursday, the UN mission chief in Kosovo, Bernard Kouchner said it would be a mistake to believe that the war in this Serbian province was now a thing of the past. Following the withdrawal of the Yugoslav military units which were replaced by NATO peacekeepers, the ethnic Albanians have unleashed a veritable campaign of terror against the local Serb and Roma population. At least four more Serbs were killed on Wednesday and, according to the office of the United Nation's refugee agency, the Albanians are torching and looting Serb and Gypsy homes and forcing their owners to leave the province. An estimated 180,000 non-Albanian Kosovars have already fled the region.
     
  • The United Nations' High Commissioner for Refugees, Mary Robinson, has urged the international community to move quickly to end the ongoing violence in Kosovo. In a report about the human rights situation in the province, Mrs. Robinson cites numerous cases of ethnic Serbs being killed driven out of their houses, abducted and tortures and insists that these crimes must end immediately because they may ignite a bloody vendetta by present and future generations of Kosovars. Mary Robinson fully shares the call recently made by the head of the UN mission in Kosovo, Bernard Kouchner to immediately deploy a 3,000-strong international police force to enforce law and order in the province. The NATO peacekeepers now deployed there are doing nothing of the kind.

  • The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees says Albanian extremists have carried out more terrorist acts against ethnic Serbs and gypsies in Kosovo. The Commissioner's mission in Kosovo says 67 gypsy harassment, beating-up and kidnap cases have been reported near the cities of Jakovitsa and Orakhovats. As many as 1.5 thousand Serbs have been forced to leave Orakhovats. Tension is running high in and near the city of Gnilane where two ethnic Serbs have been killed, and where houses that belong to Serbs and gypsies have been looted and set on fire. As many as 180,000 Serbs and gypsies have fled Kosovo since the introduction in that area of an international peacekeeping contingent.
     
  • Italian foreign minister Lamberto Dini feels the NATO-led peacekeeping contingent is incapable of insuring law and order and preventing the harassment of ethnic Serbs in the Serbian province of Kosovo. Lamberto Dini was speaking at a news conference he and the chairman of the Serbian Renovation Movement Vuk Draskovic held in Rome. Draskovic said the Albanian paramilitaries kept killing and raping ethnic Serbs and gypsies in Kosovo, and were yet to be disarmed.
     
  • United States envoy to the Balkans Robert Gelbard held this week one more confidential meeting with Yugoslav opposition leaders. He promised the Yugoslav opposition up to 10 million US dollars. The meeting was, according to Administration spokesmen, held near the Montenegran capital of Podgoritsa Tuesday. It focussed on ways for the Yugoslav opposition parties to join forces in an effort to unseat President Milosevic. Gelbard and some Yugoslav politicians met for the first time a month and a half ago, also on Montenegran territory.
     
  • The British Defense Secretary George Robertson said, on hearing that he became NATO Secretary-General, that the North Atlantic Alliance must on the eve of a new millennium focus effort on the Kosovo peace process and keep expanding eastward. Secretary Robertson has shown the most uncompromising approach to the Yugoslav problem. He sees the need for a stronger European axis in the North Atlantic Alliance and the traditionally close cooperation with the United States.

August 4

  • Kosovo in southern Serbia is the scene of unending violence against all people who are ethnically non-Albanian. In Pristina, a neighbourhood patrol has discovered the body of a 90-year-old Serb woman killed inside her own house in a suburban area. Another Serb has been killed in Vitina, and two more, in Prizren in southern Kosovo. According to the UN refuge office, some 180 thousand Serbs and Gypsies have fled the province in the seven plus weeks since the NATO-led international force moved in. In an American-controlled sector in eastern Kosovo, local villagers have held angry demonstrations to demand a stronger presence of Russian peace-keeping troops in their immediate area. They accuse the Americans of turning a blind eye on anti-Serb atrocities by ethnic Albanian gangs.

  • Representatives of the non-Albanian population continue to be killed, beaten up and intimidated in Kosovo, with NATO forces doing nothing to prevent that. This follows from reports published on Tuesday by an international organization " Human Rights Watch", and also a European center for protecting the rights of gipsies. It is stressed that a wave of murdering Serbs swept through the province after the Yugoslav troops moved out and NATO forces entered on June 12th.
     
  • A patrol of the International peace-keeping forces in Kosovo detained five Albanians on Tuesday suspected of killing a Serb. The crime took place in Pristina on Monday night. According to a representative of KFOR, ethnic Albanians the description of which coincides with the men wanted in the case were brought to a police station in the city of Pec. The KFOR representative also said that the bodies of two more Serbs - a man and a woman were found in Pristina on Tuesday evening.
     
  • An international tribunal to investigate the war crimes committed by NATO in the course of its action against Yugoslavia is being set up at the initiative of a group of Human rights organizations in Europe. Wolfgand Richter, chairman of the German society for protecting civil rights, has announced this in Belgrade. He said the setting up of the tribunal is nearing completion and it will meet for the first time on October 31st. Justice minister of Yugoslavia Zoran Knejevic promised to help collect material evidence, when meeting with the Human Rights worker.
     
  • 70 Russian policemen arrived in Kosovo on Tuesday to take part in the international police forces. According to the Interfax news agency 63 countries are taking part in stationing them in the Serbian province. And altogether Russia will send 210 policemen to Kosovo.

 
 


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