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August 3

  • Kosovo in southern Serbia is the scene of a systematic campaign of violence against all people who are ethnically non-Albanian. The Yugoslav agency TANYUG reports the discovery of the body of a 90-year-old Serb woman on Saturday who had been killed inside her house in Pristina. The agency BETA says another Serb was killed near Vitina, and two more, in Prizren in southern Kosovo. According to the UN refugee office, more than 180 thousand Serbs have fled the province since the NATO-led international force moved in. In parts of the American-controlled sector, local villagers have held angry demonstrations demanding that units from Russia are allowed to establish a stronger presence around. They accuse the Americans of turning a blind eye on anti-Serb violence by ethnic Albanian gangs.
     
  • Bishop Artemi, at the head of the Serbian Orthodox diocese in Kosovo, accuses NATO of looking on as separatist gangs loot, rape and torch. In an interview with DIE PRESSE in Vienna today, he says NATO must either leave or openly acknowledge that it is powerless to restore law and order to Kosovo.
     
  • The agency RIA-NOVOSTI quotes the Russian High Command as saying too big units of Russian peace-keepers are still clicking their heels at Pristina Airport as topmost defence officials from Russia and NATO continue bargaining on exactly what those soldiers will patrol inside the German and French sectors in Kosovo.

  • Russia says it will help the people of Yugoslavia to cope with the consequences of the recent crisis. The announcement was made on Monday by Prime-Minister Sergei Stepashin as he met in Moscow with President Milo Dzhukanovic of Montenegro. Mr.Stepashin said Russia would render assistance to all who suffered from NATO's military campaign. He said at the Sarajevo summit he was against an overall demand that Yugoslavia would receive aid only on condition President Miloshevic stepped down.
     
  • President Milo Dzhukanovic of Montenegro has criticized the performance of the KFOR international force in Kosovo pointing out that people - both Albanians and non-Albanians - continue to get killed in the province. Asked by a RIA Novosti correspondent about a status for Kosovo President Dzhukanovic described it as a strong autonomy within the Yugoslav Federation.
     
  • The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has reported continuing reprisals in Kosovo against Serbs and Gypsies. According to a communique circulated in Geneva, 178 thousand non-Albanians, first of all Serbs and Gypsies, have left the province since the NATO-led international forces entered it on June 12th.
     
  • A number of British MPs have accused NATO leaders of actions against Russia during an incident in Slatina airport in Pristina. The MPs, all members of the Committee for Peace in the Balkans, say the incident took place after Russian paratroopers arrived in the airport before NATO's forces. NATO's Commander in Europe General Wesley Clarke ordered to send helicopters to block the Russian unit but the British General Michael Jackson refused saying he had no intention to begin a new world war.

August 2

  • Mr Ivanov had a meeting with the visiting President of the Yugoslav republic of Montenegro Milo Dzukanovic for discussions on how Yugoslavia fares after the the latest Balkan war and what can be done to rebuild its ruined economy. At a later meeting with Mayor of Moscow Yuri Luzhkov, Mr Dzukanovic received assurances of humanitarian assistance to Montenegro. The two leaders also looked into a program to build long-term ties between Montenegro and the city of Moscow.
     
  • The Serb rural community of Novo-Brdo in Kosovo has appealed to Russian soldiers for protection after losing faith in the NATO part of the Kosovo Force. The agency ITAR-TASS quotes a letter from that community as saying all people there will have to take to the road unless Russian peace-keepers come. The appeal follows an incident on Sunday in which American troops briefly detained all able-bodied men in the village for trying to organize self-defence. The villagers see this as an act of intimidation, the letter on Monday says.

  • The head of the United Nations mission to Kosovo Bernard Couchnaire has strongly denounced the explosion of the Orthodox church in Pristina and called for an end to violence in that province. He described the actions by the terrorists as aimed at intimidating Serbs and said they were unacceptable. The top hierarch of the Kosovo Orthodox church Father Sava referred to the explosion as a link in the systematic campaign to wipe out Serbian churches. He pointed out that over 30 churches were blown up or burnt down after the international force had entered the province.
     
  • Meanwhile violence continues to be used Kosovo's non-Albanian population. The still-armed men of the "Kosovo Liberation Army" set fire to several more Serb houses by way of forcing the latter to flee their homes. So far there've been no reports whether the terrorists that detonated an explosive device in the Serbian Orthodox church in Pristina are being searched for.
     
  • The Russian Foreign Ministry has protested the threats to the Russian peacekeepers by the "Kosovo Liberation Army" following a brief arrest of the Army Staff commander Adzhim Cheku, who failed to produce any ID during a cheek-up. The Foreign Ministry says these threats are gross provocation and that the KLA claims of having control over the province run counter to the UN-approved peace plan for the region. The Foreign Ministry stresses in its statement that urgent steps should be taken to make the Kosovo Liberation Army unconditionally follow all the provisions of the peacekeeping process in Kosovo.

August 1

  • Yugoslavia has sharply criticized the intention of the Western countries to isolate it from the South East Europe Stability Pact. An official Belgrade newspaper " Borba" stressed on Saturday that the purpose of the pact is not helping post-war restoration of the Balkan countries, but pumping out their natural resources and encouraging Albanian terrorists. A representative of the ruling socialist party of Serbia, Ivizt Dacic described the pact that is being formed-as a past of destroying Yugoslavia, And the opposition "Civil Union" warned that attempts to isolate Yugoslavia could lead to an outburst of ultra-nationalism and conflicts between Serbia and Montenegro.
     
  • A powerful explosion today rocked the center of Pristine, the capital of Kosovo. It went off near the Serbian Orthodox Church, and damaged the south-western part of it. There have been no reports about casualties. International peace-keepers have sealed off the area around the church, and an investigation is going on.
     
  • The president of Montenegro Milo Dukanovic is arriving on a short working to Moscow to discuss the situation in the Balkans. On Monday he will meet with Russia's prime-minister Sergei Stepashin, foreign minister Igor Ivanov and the mayor of Moscow Yuri Luzhkov.
     
  • Russia's foreign minister Igor Ivanov spoke over the telephone on Saturday with UN secretary general Kofi Annan, French foreign minister Huber Vedrin and foreign minister of Spain Abe Matutis. The sides exchanged views on the results of the Sarajevo summit which ended on Friday and ways of implementing the agreements reached there. Attention was also given to how the peace-keeping mission in Kosovo was going on and to the setting up of a civilian administration there.

July 31

  • The Russian Security Council met in Moscow on Satruday to discuss new approaches towards organizing the country's civil defense. The meeting chaired by Prime-Minister Sergei Stepashin pointed out that though a direct military aggression against Russia is unlikely, there may still be conflicts which could affect it. Given this, the Security Council Secretary Vladymir Putin said, civil defense must be upgraded urgently. That this is so has been confirmed by the recent developments in the Balkans.
     
  • Meeting for the first time on Friday the parliament created by Kosovo Serbs called on the KFOR international force to take urgent measures to protect the province's non-Albanian population. Addressing the KFOR Kosovo Governor Velko Odalovic said the returning Serb refugees must be protected against looting and murder. A week ago 14 Serb farmers were shot dead in front of British soldiers. On Friday the United Nations representative in the province Serdzhio Viyeira di Mello urged again that international policemen should be sent to Kosovo at an early date. The representative said a situation in which 4 to 6 people are killed daily cannot be tolerated.
     
  • Britain has proposed its Defense Secretary George Robertson for the post of NATO's Secretary-General. The proposal made by Prime-Minister Tony Blair at the summit in Sarajevo was supported by US, French, Italian and Spanish leaders. If approved Mr. Robertson will succeed the incumbent Javier Solana in December.
     
  • President Yeltsin has thanked Defense Minister Igor Sergeev and his Balkans envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin for their contribution to resolving the conflict in Yugoslavia and defending Russia's positions in the region. The president expressed gratitude to other Russian leaders.

  • Russia is going to join efforts to implement the Stability Pact in the Balkans, first of all as regards Yugoslavia's postwar restoration. That's the way the Russian Prime-Minister Sergey Stepashin has described Russians stand on the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe. The heads of state and government of the world's leading nations that adopted the document ended their meeting in Sarajevo on Friday. The Russian Prime-Minister described the West's discriminatory attitude to the Union Republic of Yugoslavia as the "Main stumbling block" in the efforts to take action on the Pact. He said he was anxious about the proposed tough linkage between granting Yugoslavia aid and President Slobodan Milosevic resignation. Stepashin also cautioned not to take any steps to urge on Kosovo and Montenegro to withdraw from the Union Republic of Yugoslavia because, he stressed, that was fraught with the collapse of the Pact. The Sarajevo-adopted declaration says the West promises to support the Balkan countries to build a democratic society and prosperous economy on condition that Milosevic is removed from power.
     
  • The Head of the United Nations Administration in Kosovo Bernard Couchnaire has called for an early deployment in the province of an international police force to maintain law and order there. The currently deployed international force KFOR is unable to protect Serbs from attacks by Albanians. 172000 Serbs, Gypsies and other national minorities fled Kosovo after NATO had drawn to a halt its airstrikes. According to Couchnaire, 3000 policemen are needed in Kosovo, with only 200 stationed there now. 70 of the 200 are Russian policemen, and the overall Russian police force in Kosovo will make up 210.
     
  • The United States will pay 4.5 Million dollars in compensation to the relatives of those who died or were injured in the NATO on the Chinese embassy in Belgrade on May 7th this year. The US missiles, fired at the embassy, killed three Chinese journalists and insured 20 other people. Agreement to this end was reached following strenuous talks in Beijing.

July 30

  • Prime minister Sergei Stepashin said before boarding a plane for Sarajevo that Moscow opposed moves to condition internationa; aid in the Yugoslav reconstruction effort by the removal from the office of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. Sarajevo is hosting a summit session of the Pact for Southeast European stability. The summit is attended by Presidents Clinton and Chirac of the United States and France, British prime minister Tony Blair and German Chanceller Gerhard Schroeder. The United States has refused to back the Yugoslav reconstruction effort, which is why Stepashin said one could not put a heavier burden on the shoulders of ten million people because of one man. The Pact aims to insure political stability and respect of human rights at the Balkans. It hopes to contribute to the Balkan advance to economic prosperity and support the Balkan efforts to put down crime.
     
  • Head of the United Nations interim administration for Kosovo Bernard Kushner is calling for the earliest deployment in Kosovo of the international police contingent which will do what the international army contingent is unable to do, that is insure law and order and, consequently, the safety of ethnic Serbs. Kushner sees the need for at least 3,000 policemen in Kosovo. About 200 policemen have already arrived in Kosovo.

  • Russia's Prime-Minister Sergei Stepashin arrives in Sarajevo today to attend the summit of South- East Europe Stability Pact. Attention will be given to questions concerning the restoration of Yugoslavia. The United States and its allies refuse to help the Yugoslav people linking aid with the resignation of president Milosevic. At the recent talks in Washington, Sergei Stepashin refused to agree with such a stand, saying the people in Yugoslavia who had suffered from tough NATO bombing raids is on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe. The Russian Prime-Minister expressed hope that the conference in Sarajevo would work out rules of giving aid all over former Yugoslavia. He likewise believes there should be coordinated efforts of Russia, the United States and other interested countries in solving the problem of restoring the countries of the region.
     
  • Serbia intends to set up a special tribunal for international ecological crimes. This was stated on Thursday by Serbian minister for the protection of the environment Branislov Blajic. He said the government hopes the tribunal would bring to account the aggressive NATO bloc which did tremendous ecological harm to Yugoslavia by its 78 day barbarous bombing. The minister recalled that NATO fired more than a thousand cruise missiles on Yugoslavia and dropped several thousand bombs. The alliance used warheads with a nuclear filling when bombing oil refineries as a result some of the regions of Yugoslavia and neighboring countries have found themselves in the zone of an ecological catastrophe. This has been confirmed by a UN commission, which visited Yugoslavia.
     
  • More than 2300 Russian peacekeepers have already been sent to Kosovo. The ITAR-TASS news agency was told that today at Russia's Defense ministry. Over 120 armored vehicles, about 400 trucks and 11 helicopters have been brought to Kosovo, Several trains are on their way from Russia to Kosovo, and on Thursday 200 more Russian peacekeepers headed for the Serbian province from Saloniki, Greece where they had arrived by sea. The dispatch of Russian peacekeepers is to be completed by the 6th of next month.

July 29

  • The first summit meeting on the Pact of stability in South-Eastern Europe is getting under way in Sarajevo, with the leaders of some 30 countries due to take concrete decisions on providing economic aid to the Balkan countries that were hit as a result of the Yugoslav crisis and NATO airstrikes. The United States and its western allies have insisted that an official Yugoslav delegation should refrain from participating in the summit. Washington feels that if the people of Serbia continue to suffer the numerous privations it is faced with, it will sooner force President Milosevic to resign. The presidents of the United States and France, heads of government or foreign ministers of many other countries are due to arrive in Sarajevo on Friday to attend the two-day summit. The Russian delegation to the Sarajevo meeting is to be led by Prime-Minister Stepashin.
     
  • The deputy commander of the Russian Airborne Force General Nikolai Staskov has reaffirmed that the whole of the Russian peacekeeping contingent will have been deployed in Kosovo by the 10th of next month. According to the General, the Russian paratroopers that arrived in the Greek port-city Saloniki on Wednesday, are now making a force march across Greece and Macedonia to Kosovo's administrative centre Pristina. The overall strength of the Russian contingent will make up some 3,600 servicemen.
     
  • Yugoslav, Russian and Byelorussian MPs were meeting in Belgrade on Thursday to discuss the brief of a future joint parliamentary commission to work out the concept of Yugoslavia's planned accession to the Union of Russia and Byelarus. Boris Mikhinin who heads the Russian-Byelorussian delegation said he was satisfied with Belgrade's continuing desire to joint the Union despite what he said was "a new situation emerging from the end of NATO's recent aggression against Federal Yugoslavia."

  • As many as 220 Russian peacekeepers and 196 armored and other army vehicles have disembarked in the Greek port Saloniki, where they were taken aboard four big amphibious landing vessels of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. The Russian peacekeepers will in the afternoon begin a 420-kilometer march for Kosovo. Russia is willing to send 3600 servicemen and more than 200 police officers to that Serbian province.
     
  • Belgrade accuses the international peacekeeping contingent and the interim administration of Kosovo of failing to insure people's safety. The TANJUG news agency has quoted the Yugoslav government as saying that the Yugoslav army pullout makes it possible for terrorists elements to cross freely the Yugoslavia-Albanian border into Kosovo and commit numerous crimes, the bloodiest of which is the murder of 14 ethnic Serbs in village of Staro Gratsko. The Yugoslav government demands border control, with the return there of Yugoslav border guards and customs men, the disarmament of the Kosovo Liberation Army and the safe repatriation of people of every ethnic background.
     
  • A white paper distributed at the UN headquarters in New York by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees says the North Atlantic Alliance destroyed about 1500 village in Kosovo. The High Commissioner's Office says about 40 percent of living quarters and more than 30 percent of schools were destroyed in the villages of Kosovo by NATO bombs.

July 28

  • Prime Minister Sergey Stepashin says he can feel satisfied with the outcome of his visit to the US. The two great powers, he told reporters before leaving Washington on Wednesday, can look forward to establishing an open and respectful partnership between them. His discussions with President Bill Clinton and Vice President Albert Gore took in bilateral exchanges in the economy and international policy issues including the latest crisis over Kosovo. Mr Stepashin re-affirmed Russian plans to offer assistance to Yugoslavia an called for close Russian-American cooperation to avert mass human suffering there during the coming winter months. The US, unfortunately, is known for its insistence on no help to Federal Yugoslavia as long as President Slobodan Milosevic remains in power. Much attention during the Russian Premier's talks in Washington went to how to implement the strategic arms reduction agreement the START-2 and draft a START-3.
     
  • The Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov says he can see no point in NATO's assault on Federal Yugoslavia and the whole operation came as a disappointing shock to this country when it began. In an interview with the German weekly STERN today, Igor Ivanov accuses NATO of planning its Balkans campaign in a deceitful way behind Russia's back. This, he said, gives rise to fears that other troublesome regions may go Kosovo's way. President Yeltsin instructed the Russian government to freeze all contacts with NATO following the start of the American-led aggression in late March. Relations resumed last week but remain confined to the international military operation in Kosovo.
     
  • Twenty six flights, two landing flotillas and nine military trains have brought 3 thousand Russian soldiers to Kosovo complete with 140 armored vehicles and 450 trucks. The figures came from Commander of the Russian Airborne Corps General Georgi Shpak at a news conference in Moscow on Wednesday. He expected the dispatch to be complete before August the 6th.
     
  • Residents of the Kosovo village of Staro Gratsko have given burial to the 14 Serbs killed last week. International representatives in the province say investigation into the crime, the bloodiest since the deployment of the KFOR force, will continue. There have been no reports about the investigation results. Belgrade believes that it won't be completed. The forensic analysis is carried out on orders and under the leadership of the international forces, not the UN civilian mission in Kosovo which must deal with it. None of the Serb experts has been allowed to take part in the examination.

  • One of the leaders of the Yugoslav opposition Vuk Draskovic has accused the KFOR troops of failing to comply with their commitment to protect the Serbs in Kosovo. Speaking in Belgrade he placed on KFOR responsibility for the death of 14 Serbian peasants in the control zone of the British servicemen last Friday. They heard shots but took no measures against the Albanian fighters who attacked the Serbs. Draskovic also pointed out that the international forces did not close the border between Kosovo and Albania, so the Serbian province could in the long run become part of Albania.
     
  • Four big Russian landing crafts have arrived in Saloniki, Greece. They brought another group of Russian peacekeepers heading for Kosovo. More then half of the Russian contingent is already there. Its total strength is 3600 men.

July 27

  • The UN Security Council has issued a strongly-worded denunciation of the killing of 14 Serb villagers in Kosovo on Friday. In a unanimously adopted resolution, tabled by Russia, it demands to investigate the incident and bring the perpetrators to justice as soon as possible. The 14 villagers, which included a woman and a child, were massacred as they were winding up a day of hard field work. British soldiers in the area heard the shooting but stayed away. Yugoslavia on Monday asked the UN for a permission to deploy limited numbers of its troops in Kosovo in order to protect the Serb community there and close the region's border with Albania so that armed ethnic Albanian gangs cannot cross in.
     
  • Finance Minister Mikhail Kasyanov says this country is beginning the credit shipment of 150 million dollars worth of industrial equipment to Yugoslavia. Initial consignments will include cable, transformers, power generators and refinery columns. Experts put at between 30 to 150 billion US dollars the damage from the American-led air aggression against Yugoslavia. The country's industrial output has fallen by nearly one half as a result.

  • The Russian Prime-Minister Sergei Stepashin, now on a visit to the United States, are meeting in Washington later in the day with President Bill Clinton and Vice-President Albert Gore. The meeting is the first of its kind since NATO's bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. As he arrived in Washington on Monday Mr.Stepashin said the participants in the talks would undoubtedly discuss the situation in Kosovo. He pointed out, however, that no political or military upheavals would take the two countries back to the Cold War and expressed hope that there would be no more of them.
     
  • Members of the United Nations Security Council are shocked by the massacre on July 23rd of 14 Serb farmers in the village of Staro Grachko in Kosovo. The announcement was made after closed-door consultations on Monday by the Council's Chairman Agam Hasmi. The Security Council condemned the criminal act and called for an extensive investigation to bring those responsible to justice.
     
  • The UN High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata has condemned last week's massacre in Kosovo in which 14 Serb farmers were murdered. 170 thousand Serbs have left Kosovo since the NATO-led international forces entered the province. Addressing the UN Security Council on Monday Sadako Ogata urged that a new crisis should be prevented. The recent killing took place in the British sector and Serbs accuse them of doing nothing to prevent acts of this kind. The bloodshed in Grachko was condemned in Strasburg on Monday by the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly.
     
  • Greece and Russia have called for implementing a program to rebuild the economy of the Balkan countries. The need to do it was underscored during talks in Athens by the Russian Vice-Premier Valentina Matvienko and Greek leaders. Mrs.Matvienko is in Greece with an official visit.
     
  • The United States has blocked a proposal from Holland and Greece to help energy enterprises in Yugoslavia. Part of the plants were destroyed by the NATO bombardments and the others need fuel the imports of which have been banned on Washington's initiative. An European Union representative has said in Brussels that Washington continues to insist that it will help Yugoslavia on condition President Miloshevic steps down.

July 26

  • The Chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Norway's Foreign Minister Knut Vollebek has denounced the killing of 14 Serbs in Kosovo and has urged the international peacekeeping force to take steps to more effectively protect ethnic minorities in the province. The OSCE chairman stresses in his statement circulated in Vienna on Sunday, that violence in Kosovo has reached unacceptable levels and should be stopped without delay.
     
  • Meanwhile the Belgrade news agency TANJUG says in Sunday's comment on the massacre of 14 Serbs in Kosovo that the province is turning into a place of outrageous anarchy and a source of another international conflict. The comment points out that the Kosovo population trust in the NATO-led international force in the province will continue to wane and violence will be on the increase unless the provision is carried out of the Belgrade-NATO agreement on a deployment of a limited contingent of Yugoslav troops and police in Kosovo. TANJUG says that 45 Kosovo Serbs have been killed and 18 injured in the past 38 days. There are 632 registered cases when Albanian extremists attacked or robbed Serbs. 162 Serbs have been taken hostage. On Sunday Yugoslavia demanded an urgent convocation of the United Nations Security Council to take steps to protect the Serbian population in Kosovo.

July 25

  • Both Moscow and Washington see Prime Minister Stepashin's visit to the United States as a very good chance to improve Russian-US relations. A Kremlin spokesman sees it as the first visit by such a high-ranking dignitary since the breakthrough in the efforts to settle the Kosovo problem. Washington links the visit to the resumption of a constructive dialog and moves to meet the bilateral agreements signed by the Russian and US Presidents last month in Cologne. Mr.Stepashin is planning to meet with President Clinton, Vice-president Al Gore and members of the US Congress. He will focus on economic cooperation, nuclear security and arms control and some international issues.
     
  • United Nations envoy in Kosovo Bernard Kushner has denounced Friday night's murder of 14 ethnic Serbs, in a village near the city of Pristina. He signed a formal statement which describes the mass murder as a meaningless act of violence and which calls for the earliest detention and condemnation of the assassins. British investigating officers see the murder as a pre-planned action.
     
  • Russian foreign minister Igor Ivanov commented the murder of Serb civilians near Pristina by saying that more than 140,000 Serbs and representatives of other ethnic minorities of Kosovo had fled their homes for fear of violent action. Mr. Ivanov described what was happening as increasingly brazen and large-scale violence. He said the international community, which had claimed responsibility for a Kosovo accommodation must take an unbiased approach to the developments and move without hesitation. Mr. Ivanov made a stopover in Delhi on his way to Singapore where the Association of South East Asian Nations is holding session.
     
  • The foreign ministers of Bulgaria, Albania and Macedonia are to meet for the discussion of a concerted approach to regional security and cooperation and chances to launch joint ventures for the development of the regional infrastructure. The Bulgarian foreign ministry says the initiative to hold the meeting belongs to Macedonia.

July 24

  • Russia and NATO will bend every effort to guarantee the security of Kosovo residents, whatever their ethnic, political or religious belonging. This comes in a statement, circulated in Brussels on Friday in the wake of a meeting of the Joint Russia- NATO Standing Committee. The parties to the meeting expressed concern about the continued exodus of Serbs and other ethnic groups from Kosovo and urged the population of the province to cooperate with the international security force that operates on the UN Security Council mandate there.
     
  • Meanwhile 14 Serbs were killed in a village in Central Kosovo on Friday night. This came in a statement in Pristina earlier today by a KFOR spokesman, Major Ian Iosten. According to him, he denounces the "cruelest crime perpetrated since the deployment of the international peacekeeping force in KOSOVO". Fearing for their life over 130,000 Serbs have fled Kosovo in the past weeks alone.
     
  • The European Union Ministers for the Environmental Protection will meet in Helsinki later today to hear out a UN Commission's report about the ecological damage that NATO's airstrikes have done to Yugoslavia. The UN Commission under the former Finnish Minister for the Environmental Protection Pekka Haavisto had been on a several day long fact-finding mission to the areas and production facilities that NATO aircraft used as targets in Yugoslavia. The commission paid special attention to reports about radiation caused by the fact that NATO used radioactive core bombs and missiles. The European Union is to take a final decision on the report in September.

July 23

  • The Russia-NATO Permanent Council, meeting in Brussels, pledged to do everything possible to guarantee equal protection to all residents of Kosovo. This was the first meeting after a cooling-off of relations over the alliance's aggression against Yugoslavia. The participants signed a statement confirming their adherence to the UN resolution on Kosovo. Both sides voiced deep concern about the continuing mass exodus of Serbs and other ethnic groups from Kosovo. They vowed to step up efforts to improve the security situation in the province. Russia and NATO called on local residents to assist the international peacekeepers deployed in Kosovo.
     
  • Meanwhile, reports from Kosovo say tension there is running high. A spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry announced on Friday that Serbs were being forced out from nearly every district. The worst situation is in Pristina, Orahovac and Prizren. Russia's special peacekeeping contingent continues to build up its presence in assigned areas, and to receive and accommodate fresh units arriving by plane and railway transport.
     
  • The German Chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder made a stopover in the Macedonian capital Skopjie on his way to Kosovo where he is planning to meet with the German peacekeepers and NATO command. He will also have talks with the ethnic Albanian leaders Khashim Tachi and Ibrahim Rugova.

  • Russia is ready for a serious dialogue with NATO. In an interview for Britain's television, Russia's Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov also expressed the belief that cooperation is possible if there is a renovated approach to building up bilateral relations. Touching on NATO's military action in the Balkans Igor Ivanov pointed out that in the future it is necessary to avoid steps that seriously complicate the situation in Europe and the world. He called on giving economic assistance to all countries that had suffered in the course of hostilities. And that applies, first of all to Yugoslavia where 50 per cent of the country's economic potential was destroyed by NATO warplanes.
     
  • The second group of four ships with Russian peacekeepers on board sails today front Tuapse on the Black Sea to Saloniki, Greece. A representative of Russia's defense ministry announced this in Moscow on Thursday evening. From Saloniki 220 Russian paratroopers will head to Kosovo. Altogether there will be 3600 Russian servicemen in the international peacekeeping forces in Kosovo.
     
  • Russia's ambassador at large Boris Mayorsky believes it is impossible to establish order in Kosovo without disarming compulsory, the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army. Speaking in London he said the Albanian fighters have left a big amount of arms and seek to take the place of civilian governing bodies which are only beginning to be formed. Under the peace agreement approved by the United Nations, the Kosovo Liberation Army was to surrender by mid-night Wednesday all heavy weapons and a third of the light arms. But the deadline had to be extended for another 48 hours. Boris Mayorsky also said that Russia is against all attempts to initiate the removal of the president of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic, and regards this as interference in the internal affairs of the country.
     
  • The project of a " Great Albania" is being carried out in Kosovo under the aegis of the European Union and the United States. The Yugoslav opposition leader Vuk Draskovic said that when speaking at a news conference in Bucharest. The KFOR has practically destroyed the border between Yugoslavia and Albania. Every day Albanian military units and bands of looters cross into Kosovo, plunder and kill people and destroy churches. As a result over 130.000 Serbs left the province in the past few weeks.
     
  • NATO's war in Yugoslavia has sharply weakened European and world security, since it demonstrated that force decides everything. Such a statement has been made by Alexei Arbatov, deputy chairman of the defense committee of Russia's Lower House of parliament. He took part in the Voice of Russia program " Vis-a-vis with the world". In his opinion the war has shown that if you don't have nuclear weapons - you'll be treated just like the others want. Alexei Arbatov also stressed that Russian peacekeepers should be present in the Serbian province of Kosovo in order to protect the Serbs.

July 22

  • The Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, on a visit to Great Britain, is holding talks with the British Prime-Minister Tony Blair and his Foreign Minister Robin Cook on a wide range of bilateral issues, and international problems, above all, the Kosovo problem. On his arrival in London Ivanov said that his mission was to restore trust between the two countries, the trust that was undermined because of Britain's participation in NATO's military operation against Yugoslavia. Other subjects to come under discussion will be European security, the peace process in the Middle East and the situation around Iraq.
     
  • Yugoslavia has sent a letter to the United Nations to request permission to deploy a limited number of its troops on the border between Kosovo and Albania to put an end to the infiltration of Albanian fighters into Serbian province. The reasoning behind the request is that the international force in Kosovo has failed to establish the required control over Kosovo borders and to make living safe for the Serbs who make their home in the province. Serbs' homes continue to be plundered and put on fire, Serbs are killed and driven away from home places. Following the withdrawal of the Yugoslav troops the fighters of the so called "Kosovo Liberation Army" seized all administrative buildings in the province and actually assumed power there.

  • The Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, who arrived in London on Wednesday, has said he will try to strengthen relations between Russia and Britain, which, as he put it, the recent developments have adversely affected. Speaking at the Heathrow airport he said President Boris Yeltsin instructed him to help in restoring relations. The two sides, Mr. Ivanov said, would focus on how to settle the situation in the Serbian province of Kosovo and the Balkans as a whole. The Russian Foreign Minister meets with his British counterpart Robin Cook and the Prime Minister Tony Blair.
     
  • Russia is continuing the airlift of its troops to Kosovo and will be transporting them by sea. Today 4 warships with paratroopers leave the Black Sea port of Tuapse and head for the Greek port of Saloniki from where the paratroopers will reach Macedonia and then Yugoslavia by road. The first five vessels arrived in Greece last week. Up till today nearly one half of the 3600-strong Russian contingent to be deployed in Kosovo have arrived there. The Russians are being deployed in the American, British, French and German sectors remaining under Russian command.
     
  • A conference on how to help Yugoslavia is now underway in the Slovakian capital Bratislava. This is just a declarative conference for participation in which only the Yugoslav opposition was invited from that country. A summit meeting is expected to be held in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo later this month to discuss how to restore the economies of the countries and regions in the Balkans that were hard hit in the war. The western countries, financing the meeting, are expected to exclude Yugoslavia from the list of aid receivers until President Slobodan Milosevic is in power.
     
  • The Kosovo Albanians continue to stage terrorist attacks against Serbs and other nationalities. They have driven out about 2 thousand Gypsies from their homes in Pristina. Now the British "peacekeepers" are moving them from one place to another, unable to guarantee security in the refugee camps, built hastily.
     
  • A charitable art exhibition in support of the people of Yugoslavia, who suffered from the NATO air attacks, will be opened today in the frame work of the international festival "Slav Bazar" in the Byelorussian city of Vitebsk. This is a Russian-Yugoslav exhibition and named as White Angel in the honor of the most beloved icon of the monastery of Mileshev built in the 13th century.

July 21

  • Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov is starting a visit to London, his first to a country that attacked Yugoslavia since the outbreak of the latest NATO war in late March. His discussions there will focus on the crisis over Kosovo. On Tuesday, he discussed the problem in a telephone conversation with his counterpart in the US Madeleine Albright. They looked into preparations for a conference on stability in South-eastern Europe in Sarajevo on the 30th of this month and fixed an agenda for a visit of the Russian Prime Minister Sergey Stepashin to Washington next Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. They also agreed to build relations on the basis of understandings achieved at the latest summit of the G-8 in Cologne in Germany in June.
     
  • The opposition Democratic Party of Serbia accuses American, British and German forces of failing to protect Serbs and Serb property in sectors under their control in Kosovo. It says members of the Serb community there are suffering increasingly severe persecution at the hands of ethnic Albanian gangs. It also says NATO forces keep open the province's border with Albania, allowing armed militants to cross back and forth. Similar accusations are contained in a statement by Vuk Draskovic, the leader of the opposition Renewal Movement.
     
  • President of the World Bank James Wolfensohn has been to Kosovo on a mission to discuss the situation there with officers of the Kosovo Force and the UN, assess the refugee problem and inspect the damage from NATO's air raids. The UN has charged the World Bank with convening a conference on international reconstruction aid to Yugoslavia. Experts say that country suffered 100 billion US dollars worth of damage from the American-led air aggression against it.
     
  • The Russian Prime Minister Sergey Stepashin might participate in the summit of the signatories of the Pact of Stability in Southeast Europe due on the 30th of this month in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo. Speaking in the Russian news agency RIA Novosti a senior government official stated this. The decision over the visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina has yet to be taken because the government has not received instructions from the President Yeltsin about this. The aim of the Pact is to guarantee economic development and political stability to the Balkan states under the European Union's crucial role.

  • Russia's foreign minister Igor Ivanov flies to Britain today. In the course of his two-day visit he will meet with prime-minister Tony Blair and his British counterpart Robin Cook. This is the first visit of Russia's foreign minister to a NATO country which took part in the military action against Yugoslavia. The situation around Yugoslavia will be one of the topics of the talks in London. Igor Ivanov had strongly criticized the use of force in settling the Kosovo problem.
     
  • The first stage of demilitarizing of the fighters of the so-called "Kosovo Liberation Army" is to be completed today. The army, made up of Albanian separatists, received arms from the West and fought for separating from Yugoslavia. Under the peace agreement, the KLA is to be dissolved. However NATO plans so far only to take away heavy weapons from the fighters and leave them light arms. Meanwhile NATO is speedily forming an Albanian police in Kosovo. And former separatist fighters are streaming into it.
     
  • The para-military units of Kosovo Liberation Army are driving the Serbs and the Gypsies away and setting their houses on fire. And nobody does anything to prevent that. This has been stressed by the German newspaper Neues Deutschland when commenting on the situation in Kosovo. It says that after the Yugoslav army left - 53 Serbs were shot dead and 40 more kidnapped - all this right in front of NATO servicemen. And nobody knows how many people are held in captivity by the Kosovo Liberation Army. It is much harder to find them, the paper notes, than to call for the removal of the president of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic.

July 20

  • Russia's foreign minister Igor Ivanov believes that there are neither winners nor loosers in the conflict around Kosovo and that NATO's military action in the Balkans is a long series of blunders. This was a serious mistake on NATO's part, he emphasizes. Many countries, including the NATO member-states, are coming to the same conclusion. NATO's 78-day bombing of Yugoslavia were helpless is settling any of the Kosovo problems. Ethnic conflicts, that have worsened, are still in progress in Kosovo. As for Russia, the main thing is that we have managed to stop the war - this is exactly what we were pressing for. This is what the Russian foreign minister said in an interview for the Komsomolskaya pravda newspaper.
     
  • Russia's has resumed air-lifting its peace-keepers to the Serb Kosovo Province. 3 transport planers will carry several dozen commanders, military hardware and food to the Pristina Slatina airfield. Meanwhile, the troops and armoured vehicles are boarding 4 large landing ships in the Black Sea port of Tuapse, which are expected to set sail to Greece on July 22nd, following a beaten route to Salonika. From Greece the Russian peacekeepers will go to Pristina through Macedonia by road. Later they will serve in sectors controlled by NATO troops; they will retain their national chain in command. Altogether, 3600 Russian peacekeepers will be deployed in Kosovo.

__________
  

  • Meeting in Brussels on Monday European Union foreign ministers decided that EU representatives would take part in the coming conference in Sarajevo on the post-war stabilization in the Balkans. The ministers agreed to set up an EU Agency on post-war reconstruction of Kosovo first and then on the economic assistance to the Balkan region. Another important decision is to begin the lifting of EU sanctions against Yugoslavia.
     
  • Chinese leaders have decided on the construction of a new building for its embassy in Yugoslavia instead of the one destroyed by NATO missiles in Belgrade early in May. The announcement was made on Monday by the Chinese Charge d'Affaires in Yugoslavia Li Manchan. The diplomat said that the destroyed building is constantly reminiscent of the tragedy in which three Chinese were killed and eight seriously wounded.

July 19

  • Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov has told reporters Russia and NATO are planning a series of high-level talks on how to expand their cooperation to areas other than the international military operation in Kosovo. This country suspended all contacts with NATO following the start of the American-led aggression against Federal Yugoslavia in late March. Brussels on Tuesday will see the first post-conflict session of the permanent NATO-Russia Council at Ambassador level. Sources at the NATO headquarters have told the agency ITAR-TASS the Russian side has stipulated an agenda that focuses on Kosovo.
     
  • More Russian troops and armor are boarding a landing barge in Tuapse on the Black Sea. A fleet of 4 such barges is expected to set sail to Saloniki in northern Greece on Thursday. From there, the reinforcement will proceed to Kosovo by road. Other reinforcements will arrive from Russia by rail. This country plans to deploy a total of 36 hundred peacekeeping troops in Kosovo.
     
  • Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeev will make a trip to Kosovo in the first decade of next month. The purpose of the trip is to inspect the Russian peacekeeping contingent. The plans were disclosed by the Russian defense ministry.
     
  • NATO admits that its air-strikes at Yugoslavia did not cause any notable losses to that country's armed forces, the Japanese paper "Asahi" reported with reference to sources at NATO headquarter in Brussels. According to the sources, the original list of hit targets included a large number of mock ups left by Yugoslav troops to mislead NATO pilots. NATO also exaggerated by several thousands the losses of the Yugoslav army in manpower. At the same time, the Japanese paper notes, the air-strikes caused a serious damage to the Yugoslav economy - bridges across the Danube, highways, power-stations and oil-refineries were destroyed.

  • Another stage of transporting Russian peacekeepers by sea to Kosovo begins today. Under the first stage five landing ships with soldiers and military equipment arrived in the port of Saloniki in Greece last Thursday. Then the peacekeepers proceeded to Yugoslavia via Macedonia on their own transport. The main part of the 3600 strong peacekeeping contingent is expected to be sent to Kosovo by sea. They will be stationed in the sectors of the US, Britain, France, and Germany and will be under Russian command. Almost half of the peacekeepers have already arrived in Kosovo. They are also being airlifted.
     
  • In an interview with the American Newsweek magazine the Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov has voiced certainly that although NATO's war in Kosovo has done grave damage to Russian-American relations, these relations had been well-developed before that, and this makes it possible to hope for a success in the efforts to settle the current stage of tense relationship. According to the Russian Foreign Minister, NATO's aggression has given rise to anti-American sentiment in Russian society, above all, among young people, and strenuous efforts should now be made to overwhelm the "Yugoslav syndrome".

July 18

  • Russia and NATO, next week, will resume relations suspended during the military operations in Yugoslavia. According to diplomatic sources in Madrid where NATO's secretary Javier Solana is staying at present - he and Russia's representative in NATO Sergei Kiselyak agreed on Thursday on Russians taking part in the alliance's joint permanent council which hadn't met since March. And in that connection Solana is expected to make an official announcement on normalizing relations with Moscow.
     
  • The commander of the international military contingent in Kosovo general Mike Jackson, said on Saturday that he believes in the success of the Russian peacekeepers. When meeting with newsmen in Pristina, he described relations between the Russians and their counterparts from other countries as "good". Meanwhile, representatives of the American and Russian command in Kosovo have agreed on forming joint patrols. The Russian began settling down in the American sector on Friday. About half of the Russian 3600 strong contingent had arrived in the province by that day. The bulk of it was brought by sea through Greece. Others are heading for to Kosovo by train across Hungary. Contacts on such transits are being established also with Bulgaria.
     
  • Bulgaria intends to propose to Russia signing an agreement on the transit use of its territory and air space by Russian KFOR peacekeepers. According to foreign minister Nadejda Mikhailova it would be similar to that which already exists between Bulgaria and NATO. She said the drafts of the agreement would also be sent to other countries which are not members of NATO but which have expressed the wish to take part in the KFOR mission. And she named Finland as one such country.
     
  • Official Belgrade has for the first time admitted that Montenegro could separate from Serbia. An influential Serbian minister Bogolub Karic, close to president Milosevic, said this could take place if the two republics fail to achieve mutually acceptable agreements. At the same time he proposed a number of measures aimed at strengthening the Yugoslav federation. One of them provides for appointing a representative of Montenegro to the post of prime-minister of the Federal government.
     
  • A Serbian teenager was killed in a Pristina hospital last night. Earlier he and his father were brought there with gun wounds and were given necessary medical aid. The relatives now fear for the father since there are no Serbians working in the hospital.

July 17

  • Prime-Minister Sergei Stepashin now on a visit to Ukraine has met with the Russian Black Sea Fleet Command to discuss measures to increase its combat readiness. Meeting in Sevastopol on Saturday with the fleet's senior officers Mr. Stepashin ordered them to carry out naval exercises in the conditions similar to those in Yugoslavia and practice how to repulse an aggression similar to NATO's one in the Balkans. The Prime-Minister instructed the Fleet's Command to set up a government commission to help rebuild the war-shattered economy in Yugoslavia.
     
  • Russia has sent to Kosovo nearly one half of its 3600-strong peace contingent. The bulk of the force came by sea to Greece and reached Yugoslavia by land via Macedonia. The airlift to Kosovo is also in full swing. Two Russian transport planes left for Yugoslavia on Saturday to deliver four helicopters for Russian peace-keepers. The first train which left on Friday will reach Yugoslavia via Hungary. According to a spokesman for the Russian General Staff, the transfer of troops to Kosovo will be over by early August. The Russian peace-keepers will be deployed in the American, British, French and German sectors but will answer to the Russian command.

  • Joint Russian-American patrols have been formed in Kosovo by agreement between the commanders of Russian and American KFOR contingents. A spokesman for the KFOR said on Friday night that the move aimed at promoting Kosovo Albanians trust in Russian peacekeepers. But the official failed to point out that the American troops too, need to win more confidence, - with Kosovo Serbs, who feel that what the GIs, deployed in Kosovo, do is insufficient to guarantee local Serbs safety. The first Russian-American patrols became operational on Friday when they assumed control over the situation in the environs of Kosovo's administrative centre Pristina.
     
  • On Friday in Kosovo a United Nations official voiced concern about killings, abductions and expulsions of Serbs and Gypsies from their home places. Chris Yanovsky, representative of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, also pointed out that Albanians had burnt down dozens of Serbs' homes and an Orthodox church in Kosovo's administrative centre Pristina. Attempts to set fire to an Orthodox church were also made in the town Prizren.
     
  • On Friday in Pristina the heads of the UN Civil Administration held as organisational meeting of "Kosovo Transitional Council". The Council has been formed in compliance with the numerical strength of Kosovo's basic nationalities and features 8 Albanians, 3 Serbs, one Montenegrin, one Turk and one Gypsy. A spokesman for the UN Secretary-General has told a briefing in New York that the Council is " the supreme political consultative body under the United Nations that has executive powers in the province. The moderate Kosovo Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova abstained from attending the meeting on the grounds that his Kosovo Democratic Union was insufficiently represented in the Albanian delegation.

July 16

  • As many as 1670 men or almost 50 percent of the 3600-strong Russian peacekeeping battalion have made it for the Serbian province of Kosovo. Most of them have been shipped from Russian Black Sea ports over to Greece and crossed Macedonia to make it for the Yugoslav border. The first trainload of Russian troops is going to Yugoslavia via Hungary. A spokesman for the Russian general staff gives the Russian battalion till early next month to reach Kosovo. The Russian peacekeepers will be deployed in the US, British, French and German control zones. They will report to their own, Russian, commanders.
     
  • Russian lawmaker Aleksei Arbatov feels the West is attacking Yugoslav President Slobodan Miloscevic so as to justify its aggression against Yugoslavia. Arbatov said, in an interview with the Moscow-based Nezavisimaya Gazeta that damages from the NATO bombing raids were put at 100 billion US dollars and that the aggressors were trying to shift from their own shoulders the burden of responsibility for the Yugoslav reconstruction effort. Those who attacked Yugoslavia said they would render no aid to Serbia until Slobodan Milosevic retained power. Arbatov lashed out against the international peacekeeping contingent which was watching leisurely the Albanian paramilitaries take arbitrary action against ethnic Serbs.
     
  • A spokeswoman for the Kosovo Democratic League has announced in Berlin that the moderately-oriented leader of the Albanian community of Kosovo Ibrahim Rugova and his family will very soon move from Germany to Pristina. Rugova arrived in Kosovo Thursday. He voiced his concern about the Serb flight from Kosovo and preached interethnic reconciliation. He said he was willing to launch joint action with those he saw as the legitimate forces of Kosovo but rejected the idea of cooperation with Hashim Tachi of the Kosovo Liberation Army, who said a short while ago he was head of a self-proclaimed government of that province.

  • Russia's peacekeeping contingent in the Serbian province of Kosovo has bean reinforced with men and military hardware. Russian paratroopers arrived there on July 16th. Some 500 servicemen and about 130 armored personnel carriers and other vehicles arrived by sea in Saloniki, Greece and from there went to Kosovo. Also on Thursday, July 15th a Russian helicopter Mi-8 and other heavy military equipment for the Russian peacekeepers were airlifted to the Slatina airport in Pristina. The total strength of Russia's peacekeeping contingent in Kosovo will number 3600 men and they will be stationed in the American, German and French sectors but under their own command.
     
  • The head of the UN Administration in Kosovo Bernard Kushner has called on the Serbs and the Albanians to live in peace and accord. He arrived in Pristina on Thursday to get acquainted with the situation in the Serbian province. Bernard Kushner promised that his administration would be open and available to all residents of Kosovo. He also recommended the local news media to report not only events in the world but also very important news concerning life in the province.

July 15

  • The column of Russian peacekeepers that set out from the Greek port Saloniki earlier today, is approaching the Macedonian-Kosovo border. The column comprises 486 servicemen and 130 trucks and armoured vehicles. On Wednesday the Russian peacekeepers arrived in Saloniki on board five landing vessels. The vessels have now left for the Russian Black Sea port Tuapse to bring more Russian peacekeepers to Greece by the end of the month. The total strength of the Russian peacekeeping contingent in Kosovo will make up approximately 3,600.
     
  • According to the headquarters of the Russian Airborne Troops, engineers of the Russian special military contingent have defused more than 22,000 explosive devices in Kosovo. Over the past month Russian paratroopers have cleared of mines more than 10,000 kilometres of roads and checked the likely presence of explosive devices at some 20 facilities.
     
  • On Thursday, the Kosovo Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova made a long-awaited return to the Serbian province. After his motorcade crossed into the province from neighboring Macedonia, a crowd of about 500 people waved flags and cheered the moderate political leader. Mr.Rugova, who left Kosovo two months ago at the height of NATO's 79-day aggression against Federal Yugoslavia, is back to try and reconcile the region's warring ethnic factions. His presence may alter NATO's plans to legalize the extremist Kosovo Liberation Army.

  • The Russian paratroopers who arrived aboard five Black Sea Fleet vessels on July 14th at the Greek port city of Saloniki, have headed for the Serbian province of Kosovo. They are escorted on Greek territory by Greek military police, and it will take them less than 24 hours to make it for Kosovo's administrative capital - the city of Pristina. More Russian peacekeepers will be shipped, in addition to the first 460 men, 13 armored personnel carriers and 97 other army vehicles, and about 100 tonnes of other payload, over to Greece. A total of 3600 Russian peacekeepers will be deployed in Kosovo. About one fourth of the Russian peacekeeping battalion has been flown over to Kosovo.
     
  • NATO commander in Europe US General Wesley Clark urges the Albanian community of Kosovo to trust the Russian peacekeepers. General Clark was speaking at a media conference in Pristina on July 14th. The media event summed up the results of Clark's meetings with the NATO commander in Kosovo British General Michael Jackson and Kosovo Liberation Army commander Adjim Cheku. What he said about the Russian peacekeepers has to do with the protest action staged by ethnic Albanians and inspired by Kosovo Liberation Army forces. The Albanian protested against Russian presence in city of Orakhovats and other places, because the Kosovo Liberation Army fighters say the Russians are prejudiced against the Albanian community of Kosovo.
     
  • A Rumanian foreign ministry spokesman said on July 14th in Bucharest that the NATO operation against Yugoslavia would cost his country up to one billion us dollars. Rumania suffered damages owing to the suspension of navigation on the Danube River and a moratorium on Rumanian oil exports to Yugoslavia. The Danube River cuts through about a dozen countries but NATO planes have destroyed bridges across it. The North Atlantic Alliance Has banned oil exports to Yugoslavia.

July 14

  • Five Russian barges with 460 troops, 13 personnel carriers, 97 trucks and 100 tonnes of supplies on board cast anchor in Salonika in northern Greece early today. Commander of the Russian Airborne Corps General Georgi Shpak says the force will start moving towards Kosovo on Thursday if it manages to disembark by that time. This country plans to deploy 36 hundred peacekeepers in Kosovo. Nine hundred have already arrived there by air. The rest will reach the Balkans by sea.

  • The first group of warships with Russian peacekeepers heading to the Serbian province of Kosovo, arrived in Saloniki, Greece. On board the five landing crafts are 460 servicemen, 100 armoured vehicles and about 100 tons of military cargo. All this was taken to Kosovo through Macedonia. The second group of Russia's landing crafts with peace-keepers and military and other equipment is expected to arrive in Saloniki at the end of the month. Most of the peace-keepers from Russia will be sent to Kosovo by sea. Altogether 3600 Russian peace-keepers will be stationed in Kosovo. About a quarters of them has already been air-lifted.
     
  • A train with military equipment and hardware for the Russian peace-keeping contingent also arrives in Kosovo today. It left Bosnia a day earlier. Some 50 armoured troop carriers and other hardware are escorted by a hundred servicemen who are part of the international stabilization force in Bosnia.
     
  • Albanian extremists in Kosovo are trying to hamper the stationing of Russian peace-keepers in the province. Protest demonstrations have been held in the past few days in the city of Orahovaz which is in the German sector and where the Russians are arriving. The local commanders of the Kosovo Liberation army promise a hard life for the Russian para-troopers and even threaten to use arms against them.

July 13

  • Two more Russian planes with troops and equipment touched down in Pristina today in a continuing Russian operation to dispatch peace-keepers to Kosovo. Russian soldiers there now number around 900, which constitutes one quarter of what this country plans to deploy. Most of the Russian contingent will go to the Balkans by sea. A strong motorized Russian force is expected to reach Kosovo by road convoy after disembarking from five landing barges in the northern Greek port of Salonika on Thursday. In a parallel development, Russia has asked Bulgaria for a permission to use Bulgarian Black Sea ports from where Russian soldiers could reach Kosovo by rail. In the meantime, the Russian commander in Kosovo Lieutenant General Valeri Yevtukhovich has discussed details of the Russian military presence in the region with his NATO counterpart Mike Jackson. The Russian contingent will operate in parts of the American-, British-, French- and German- controlled sectors in Kosovo. It has completed planned deployments in the British sector and is starting to dispatch units to the German one.
     
  • Rich countries are meeting in Brussels to prepare a broad international conference on rebuilding the Balkans from the ravvages of the latest NATO war. Eighty two nations including Russia are expected to take part. They will meet in Sarayevo this fall. The United Nations has put the European Union and the World Bank in charge of organizing the Sarayevo conference.

  • Russian peace-keepers continue to arrive in Kosovo together with military hardware and equipment. About one fourth of the total 3600 peace-keepers have been delivered to Kosovo by air. The bulk of the personnel and military hardware are arriving by sea. Five warships with Russian paratroopers are on their way to the Balkans. On the 15th of this month they are expected in the port of Saloniki in the north of Greece from where they will head for Kosovo via Macedonia by armoured personnel carriers and other vehicles. The Russians will be deployed in the American, British, French and German sectors but will answer to the Russian command.
     
  • Kosovo Serb leaders have said they are no longer willing to cooperate with international organizations because of their failure to guarantee protection from reprisals on the part of Albanians. In their statement the Serbs say militants of the Kosovo Liberation Army openly attack Serbs, burn and loot their houses and drive them out. According to Dragan Lazhic, the leader of the Pristina-based Democratic party of Serbia, only 60 of the 220 thousand Kosovo Serbs have remained in the province.
     
  • More than 7 thousand people took to the streets in the Serbian city of Valevo 70 kilometres west of Belgrade on Monday demanding resignation of President Slobodan Milosevic. According to the Associated Press news agency, the rally was initiated by a local organization called "Civil Resistance". Three policemen and one protester are reported to have been wounded.

July 12

  • This country continues an operation to dispatch peace-keepers to Kosovo. One more planeload of personnel and equipment reached the provincial capital Pristina today a little over 20 hours after two similar planeloads arrived there on Sunday. Five Russian landing barges are in the Aegean Sea under sail to Salonika in northern Greece from where the troops and armour on board will proceed to Kosovo by road. There should be a total of 36 hundred Russian soldiers in Kosovo. They will serve in sectors controlled by American, British, French and German units of the Kosovo Force but fully retain their national chain of command. The Russian commanding officer in Kosovo says his men will treat members of the Serb and the Albanian communities quite equally in operations to prevent clashes between them.
     
  • Leaders of the Kosovo Serbs say they will continue to deny cooperation to international offices in the province as long as these fail to stop the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army looting and torching Serb property, killing Serbs and driving them out of their homes in Kosovo. The Japanese paper ASAHI on Sunday reported widespread seizures of shops, restaurants and public buildings by members of ethnic Albanian gangs. The Yugoslav dinar is out of circulation. It has given way to the US dollar and Deutschmark, the Japanese paper said.
  • The Spanish peacekeepers deployed in the area of Pec are incapable of defending the Serb and Gypsy minorities from attacks by Albanian fighters and limit themselves to taking Serbs and Gypsies to Montenegro. On the way back they bring to Pec even more Albanian refugees. The spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in the area Laura Boldrini has said in this context that UNHCR is compelled to evacuate Serbs and Gypsies from Kosovo because in their home place these people risk their lives.

July 11

  • Three large landing vessels of the Russian Black Sea Fleet have passed the straits of Bosporus and Dardanelles and will cast anchor in the Aegean this afternoon. The ships left the port-city Tuapse last Thursday, the 8th. Two more vessels carrying Russian peacekeepers, that left the Black Sea port later, will join them next Tuesday. Once united, the ships, under the flag of Rear-Admiral Vladimir Vasiukov, will make for the Greek port Saloniki, whence the peacekeepers will make a forced march to the places of their deployment in Kosovo. Three Russian military transport planes with more peacekeepers are to leave for Kosovo in the next few days.
     
  • On Saturday the Orthodox church in the town Kosovska-Mitrovica saw the Requiem Office for the Serbs that fell at the hand of "Kosovo Liberation Army" fighters and died in NATO's airstrikes on the province. 60 people from the Serbian part of the town were taken to the church under the guard of French servicemen. The commander of the French peacekeepers Captain Jean-Paul Daza told journalists that no incidents had occurred en route. According to him the situation in the town, divided into the Serbian and Albanian parts, is gradually getting back to normal.
     
  • According to a report by the "Washington Post" on Saturday, the Albanian separatists have a new political party in the Serbian province Kosovo. The party leader is Bardhil Mahmuti, who in his time served 7 years in prison for antigovernment activities and who later made his home in Switzerland. He feels that Albanians can live together with Serbs in Kosovo but cannot co-exist with the "Serbian regime in Belgrade". According to the "Washington Post", the formation of the Mahmuti-led party proves that Albanian separatists step up struggle for power, upsetting all plans of the West, which stake on the leader of the "Kosovo Liberation Army" and of the self-proclaimed "government" Hashim Tachi.

July 10

  • According to the Russian Defence Ministry, a Russian military transport plane "Ilyushin-76" is due to take off from the air-field "Chkalovsky", in the Moscow region, later today, bound for the Pristina airport "Slatina". The plane will take technical equipment and a group of Russian paratroopers to Kosovo. Another three Russian military transport planes are to leave for Kosovo in the next few days. A group of officers of the Russian General Staff are due to take Saturday's flight to go to Pristina.
     
  • The NATO Commander-in-Chief, Europe, American General Wesley Clark has told a news conference in the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina Sarajevo that over 30,000 NATO troops are now deployed in the Serbian province Kosovo. General Clark came out for holding in the Bosnian capital in late July a summit meeting of the countries that are interested in achieving stability in and economic restoration of the nations of South-East Europe. NATO has destroyed Yugoslavia by airstrikes and now seeks to exclude Serbia from the programme of restoration until Slobodan Milosevic remains Yugoslav President.
     
  • It's the European Union, not the United States that should play the leading role in restoring Kosovo. The point was stressed by the Italian Foreign Minister Lamberto Dini as he addressed an international conference on Balkan countries' restoration in Rome on Friday. Mr.Dini pointed to the ever-stronger pressure by West European political and military circles for the creation of European defense forces and reduction of the US military presence in the region.
     
  • The current chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Norway's Foreign Minister Knut Vollebek has promised to help bring back to Kosovo all refugees, not only Albanian refugees. He was speaking on Friday in the Kosovo city Pec, where he met officials of the Serbian Orthodox Church at the Patriarch's office. According to Vollebek, aid will be given to all who was driven away from Kosovo and Metochia and who will return to home places, and the United Nations will guarantee normal life in the province. Meanwhile, as NATO peacekeepers remain largely inactive, Albanian fighters refuse to disarm, set fire to houses and kill Serbs in Kosovo.
     
  • Next week a group of American officials will leave for Beijing in a bid to improve bilateral relations, which were gravely damaged when a US aircraft bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade on May 7th. Three Chinese journalists died and 20 people were injured in the attack, and grave damage was done to the embassy building. The Chinese authorities reject the American version, whereby the embassy came under attack by accident, insist that the bombing raid was premeditated and demand that those guilty should be punished.

July 9

  • The Russian Armed Forces are capable of carrying out every task to ensure the country's security. This was stated by Defense Minister Igor Sergeev earlier in the day at a news conference on the results of the strategic HQ exercises, "Zapad-99" (West-99). These, he said, were the largest-scale exercises since the creation of the Russian Armed Forces, which embraced large regions of the country. Military operations, General Sergeev said, were launched in the area from the Barents Sea to the Black Sea. As the exercises were prepared and carried out, the Minister pointed out, we took into account the situation in Yugoslavia.
     
  • According to a spokesman for the Russian Navy, the departure of the second force of Black Sea ships with Russian peacekeepers on board, headed for Kosovo, is scheduled for next Sunday. The force consists of two big assault landing ships and an auxiliary ship. The first group of three landing ships, which departed on Thursday, is expected to arrive in Greece approximately on July the 15th. From there the Russian peacekeepers will reach Kosovo via Macedonia by armored vehicles.
     
  • Parliament in Bulgaria has voted for providing air corridors for the Russian peacekeepers to be dispatched to Kosovo. The decision based on the government's recommendation was passed by an absolute majority: out of 215 deputies one voted against the decision and one abstained.
     
  • The political leader of the separatist-oriented Kosovo Liberation Army Hashim Tachi puts to doubt the United Nations Security Council resolution on Yugoslav sovereignty over Kosovo. Hashim Tachi said, in an interview with the Swiss newspaper Tan that the idea of living together with Serbia would be seen as unacceptable by most Kosovars. Hashim Tachi, 31, used to be a Kosovo Liberation Army field commander. He heads the self-proclaimed government of Kosovo.

  • Russia has stressed in the UN Security Council the need to implement in practice the resolutions on disarming and demobilizing former fighters, including the Kosovo Liberation Army. Russia's ambassador to the United Nations, Sergei Lavrov, pointed out that the process of demilitarizing the Kosovo Liberation Army isn't going on sufficiently dynamically. NATO military contingent are clearly lagging behind in that respect, said the Russian diplomat. He recalled that the objective set to the international forces in Kosovo by the Security Council provides for the practical disarming of the fighters of the Kosovo Liberation Army, together with dismantling all their military structures. The main forces of the Russian contingent are, at present, on their way to Kosovo.
     
  • On July 8th the operation to transfer Russian peacekeepers to Kosovo got under way, and the first three landing vessels with servicemen, tanks and armoured personnel carriers on board left the Black Sea port Tuapse bound for the Balkans. On July 10th they'll be joined by two more vessels heading for Saloniki, a port in the North of Greece. From there Russian paratroopers will move to neighbouring Macedonia then - to Kosovo.
     
  • The advanced group of' the Russian paratroopers will begin moving into the American zone of responsibility in Kosovo on July 10th. That was stated by the commander of Russia's peacekeeping forces in Kosovo, major-general Valeri Evtuhovich in an interview for the ITAR-TASS news agency. He said the Russian peacekeepers will be stationed in the population center of Kosovo Kamenitsa and will provide everything necessary for receiving, stationing and settling down Russia's 13th paratroop battalion from Pskov.

July 8

  • President Boris Yeltsin has said that Russia is not going to quarrel with NATO, but neither is it going to flirt with the alliance. Speaking at a meeting in Moscow with the Russian Army top command on Thursday he described Russia's relations with NATO as a delicate issue. The President said that Moscow would closely watch NATO's moves and work out an adequate tactical position with regard to the alliance.
     
  • Russian peacekeepers have begun to be transferred to Kosovo by sea. The first ship has left the Black Sea port of Tuapse and is bound for Saloniki, in the North of Greece. From Saloniki the troops, tanks and armoured personnel carriers will head for Kosovo through Macedonia. More Russian ships with paratroopers and military hardware will set sail from Tuapse shortly. Before that Russian peacekeepers were transferred to Kosovo by plane. In all the Russian contingent will feature 3,600 troops to be deployed in the American, British, French, German and, possibly, Italian sectors but to remain under Russian political and military control.
     
  • China has again demanded a comprehensive and unbiased investigation into NATO's airstrike on the Chinese embassy in Belgrade on May 7th, when 3 people were killed and 20 injured. The Chinese Foreign Ministry points out in a statement on Thursday that the explanations offered by the US State Department to this end are absolutely insufficient and unconvincing. Those guilty of committing the crime should be named and severely punished. The families of the victims, the Foreign Ministry stresses in its statement, should be paid compensation as well as the damage done to the embassy building should be made up for. China plans to go on negotiating the problems with the United States.
     
  • Earlier today in Belgrade some unknown people shot at and killed the head of a district police station. Police have launched investigation and have begun to search for the assassins.

  • Russian peacekeepers are being shipped over to the Serbian province of Kosovo. The Russian NTV television channel has quoted the Black Sea Fleet command as saying three landing ships with troops and army hardware aboard will leave Tuapse port for Greece on July 8th, and two more ships will leave port July 11th. As soon as they've left behind the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, the two task forces will be placed under one command in the Sea of Marmora. It will take them a total of six days to reach Greece, where the peacekeepers will disembark to ride army ground vehicles for Kosovo. A Russian advance party made it for Kosovo from Bosnia on June11th, a few hours before the North Atlantic Alliance entered the troubled province. On July 7th about 300 Russian paratroopers were flown over from Russia to Slatina airport of the city of Pristina, where the advanced party is holding position. There will be a total of 3600 Russian peacekeepers in different parts of Kosovo.
     
  • On July 7th Serbia celebrated the 56th anniversary of its anti-Nazi uprising. Serbian President Milan Milutinovic laid a wreath to the monument to the Unknown Hero in Belgrade. Wreaths were also laid to liberation monuments all over Serbia. Yugoslav deputy prime minister Jovan Zebic said in the village of Bela Trskva where the uprising sparked up, that the anti-Yugoslav aggression of this year was more cruel and destructive than the Nazi aggression of the World War II.

 
 


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