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April 30

Our special correspondent in Yugoslavia Igor Mikhailov has sent us an eye-witness report by telephone about dramatic events in Belgrade.
Air raid sirens wailed rather early yesterday night, about 10 in the evening. The sounds of bomb and missile explosions could be heard in and outside Belgrade throughout the night. Several missiles hit the Yugoslav Armed Forces' command headquarters, not far from the international press-center. Among the buildings that were bombed last night was the Interior Ministry. When fire engines and ambulances arrived, the place was soon hit by another bomb. So the number of casualties, which has not been announced yet, may be very high.
Several missiles landed in a residential area along Maxim Gorky street, destroying a number of houses and damaging water supply. Serbian TV broadcasting was interrupted when a missile hit a local transmitter.
The Yugoslavs face the bombings with fortitude and calm. It is simply amazing but there is absolutely no panic in the streets. Every day there is a concert in the center of Belgrade. People openly defy NATO's threats. There is a deep-running belief that lies spread by Western Media about Yugoslavia will be exposed.
Since the 24-th of March we have all become witnesses of how NATO's new strategy directed into the 21-st century is being put into Action. NATO leaders are no longer exploring the possibility of transforming the alliance from a military bloc into a purely political organization, as they did a few years before. On the example of Yugoslavia we see that they stake on brutal force, rejecting political dialogue and peaceful diplomacy.
President Boris Yeltsin's special representative on Yugoslavia Victor Chernomyrdin on Friday arrived in Belgrade for talks with President Slobodan Milosevic about a settlement in Kosovo. Speaking on the eve of his visit he expressed hope that the talks would be a success, adding that the crisis must be resolved by political means. Earlier Mr Chernomyrdin visited Bonn and Rome where he had talks with German and Italian leaders. He described the meetings as constructive, saying that they revealed a similarity of approaches to the Yugoslav settlement. Mr Chernomyrdin informed his Western partners about Moscow's peacemaking proposals approved by President Yeltsin. He called for political dialogue as a key way of handling the crisis, and said Russia firmly opposed NATO's ground operation in Kosovo.
NATO forces continue missile and bomb attacks on Yugoslavia. On Friday morning they bombed a cluster of government offices in Belgrade. Three people were killed. Another four civilians, including one woman, were wounded in a bombing raid on the Belgrade's suburb of Vrakar. A NATO spokesman in Brussels has said that in the past 24 hours the alliance's planes took off 600 times to bomb Yugoslavia. One of the bombs destroyed a TV tower on Mount Avala depriving the official Serbian television of the opportunity to continue broadcasting. Another strike damaged the antennas of the Studio B municipal TV company. Seven missiles exploded on the premises of a steel-making plant in the city of Glogovac. A road bridge connecting Kosovo's capital Pristina with the southern Serbian city of Nish has also been destroyed. According to the Yugoslav military command, NATO has dropped 11 thousand tons of explosives on Yugoslavia, more than one kilogram per each citizen. Over one thousand civilians have been killed and about five thousand have been wounded in the bombings.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the former Irish President, Mrs Mary Robinson has warned NATO leaders, responsible for the barbaric bomb attacks on Yugoslavia, that they could face criminal charges. Speaking at Friday's meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva, Mrs Robinson said that the bombings had inflicted heavy casualties and destroyed many civilian sites. She said NATO had usurped the right to decide which of the sites should be bombed. Mrs Robinson noted that a principle of proportionate responsibility should be applied to those responsible for the crimes in Yugoslavia.
The European Union has introduced an oil embargo against Yugoslavia. This has been announced by a Union spokesman in Brussels. He said a ban on oil supplies to Yugoslavia has taken force as of Friday.
Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov has said NATO's decisions to enforce the embargo against Yugoslavia are important only to its member-states. Explaining Russia's position on the issue at a news conference on Friday, the minister pointed out that it was based on the UN Charter and UN Security Council resolutions. Mr Ivanov stressed that Moscow's attitude to the embargo clashed with NATO's policy.
Any foreign vessels supplying oil to Yugoslavia in breach of the European Union's embargo will face serious consequences up to an attack by NATO warships. This has been announced by the US Defense Secretary William Cohen. He stressed that a country that violated the embargo risked facing economic and political sanctions. According to the Secretary, the use isn't ruled out either.
A high-ranking spokesman for the Russian defence ministry, Leonid Ivashov, has told media people in Moscow that Russia will send troops to keep peace in Kosovo if the United States Security Council, President Yeltsin and the Upper house of the Russian legislature give the green light to a peacekeeping operation in that troubled province. In Ivashov's view, Moscow has an excellent idea for a peacekeeping effort and the Russian defense minister discussed it the other day with his German and Greek counterparts. No sizeable army contingents would be committed to action if, Ivashov said, the North Atlantic Alliance took it upon itself to disarm the separatist-oriented Kosovo Liberation Army.

NATO warplanes hit new air strikes at Yugoslavia on Thursday night. There were two raids on Belgrade and its outskirts. The TV tower on Avala mount was destroyed and that stopped transmission of official Serbian television. A strike was likewise hit at the antennas of the municipal TV company " Studios B" and its screens went dark. There was a number of big explosions in the center of Belgrade where the buildings of the defence and interior ministries were damaged. Several residential houses were raised to the ground in the neighbouring block. Human casualties are reported. The administrative center of Kosovo - Pristina likewise came under attack. Seven missiles exploded on the grounds of a steel plant in the city of Glogovac. There was another raid on the industrial zone of Novi-Sad, Yugoslavia's accord biggest city. According to Yugoslavia's military command 11.00 tons of explosives were dropped on the country's territory since NATO's aggression began, that is more than one kilogram to every one resident. Over a thousand civilians were killed and five thousand wounded.
Russia will continue its mediating efforts in Yugoslavia. That was stated by the special representative of the Russian president in the Balkans Victor Chernomyrdin after meeting with Italy's prime-minister Massimo d'Alema in Rome on Thursday evening. In the opinion of Victor Chernomyrdin there are signs of the positions of the sides drawing closer to each other as the search for a political settlement of the Kosovo crisis continues. At the same time, he stressed once again that the bombing of Yugoslavia should be ended before negotiations start Italy`s prime- minister said there has appeared hope for a peaceful solution of the Yugoslav conflict. Earlier on Thursday Victor Chernomyrdin had talks in Bonn with the chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany Gerhard Schoeder and foreign minister Joachka Fischer.
Moscow has played host to a four-way meeting of Kosovo, a meeting that's involved the Russian, Greek and Canadian Foreign Ministers lgor lvanov, Georgios Papandreu and Loyd Axworthy, and also the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The Russian Foreign Minister Ivanov said the four had agreed to act in a more resolved way to find a political solution to the Kosovo problem. The G-8 political director are to meet shortly to prepare a meeting of the G-8 Foreign Ministers.
The International court will begin examining the suit filed by Yugoslavia against NATO member-countries on May 10th. A UN high ranking judicial official made such a statement in the Hague on Thursday evening. Yugoslavia has charged the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, Spain and Portugal fighting against it- with crude violation of International law. It demanded ending the aggression and compensating for the damage done.
A group of Russian parliamentarians meets in Vienna today with a delegation of the US Congress, made up of six Republicans and six Democrates. This will be the first contact between the Russian parliament and the US Congress since the bombing raids on Yugoslavia started. The leader of the parliamentary faction -Our Home is Russia -Vladimir Rizhkov who is on the delegation said they want American Congressmen to know Moscow's principled stand on the situation in Yugoslavia. In the opinion of Vladimir Rizkov, many American Congressmen, especially the Republicans are beginning to understand that the military action against Yugoslavia is ruinous and can lead the United States into a blind alley.
0nly a political solution could put an end to the bombing and killing in Yugoslavia. This was stated at a news conference in Athens Thursday by representatives of the international ecological organization Greenpeace. They warned that the continuation of the war in the Balkans could have disastrous aftermaths. Hostilities have dangerously increased the concentration of toxic substances, including dioxin. Greenpeace also says that the use by NATO of shells and bombs with uranium fillings is criminal.

April 29

We have a report filed by our special correspondent in Belgrade Igor Mikhailov.
On Wednesday air raid sirens wailed through silence in Belgrade at about 11 p.m. and a series of powerful explosions rocked the city every two hours or so all through the night. One of the alliance missiles destroyed a bridge across the Sawa River which had only been built three or four months ago. The NATO warplanes also rained missiles on Topcider which is a historical part of the Yugoslav capital, causing damage to a local children's hospital and a maternity home. Besides Belgrade, the alliance bombs and rockets also thrashed the capital of Montenegro Podgoritsa and Serbia's second city of Novy Sad.
Back in Belgrade, many newspapers carried reports about the tragedy. In the small town of Surdulitsa near the Macedonian border where a NATO airstrike on Tuesday left 20 people dead, 12 of them women and children, caused various injuries to 150 others and destroyed, either in part or fully, about 300 buildings, houses, schools and hospitals. After a brief stonewalling, the NATO officials eventually acknowledged the attack on the peaceful township blaming it down on a pilot error.
I visited a number of facilities in Belgrade that have come under bomb and missile attacks over the past month. One of these is a thermal power station, one of the largest in Europe. It supplied heat to more than a million Belgrade residents. When the station came under attack, several people were killed on the spot, and huge fuel oil tanks were destroyed and fuel oil spilled into the Sava river. And it's only thanks to selfless moves by station workers and fire-fighters that the city was saved from an ecological disaster. And, of course, I went to see what had become of the SERBIA TV and Radio Centre. The Centre is almost reduced to ruin, and when NATO missiles struck, there had been over 100 Serbian colleagues of mine, including those who helped Russian and western journalists transmit their reports from Belgrade. According to Dusan Jakovlevic, Secretary-General of the Serbian Television and Radio broadcasting company, the average ago of those who died in the attack was 25 years. These are very sad statistics.
The Russian President Boris Yeltsin has voiced concern about the situation around Yugoslavia. As he received the United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan in Moscow on Thursday, he said that stakes were high today both for Europe and the whole world. And either international law and order were restored, or the world would be ruled by crude force. The parties to the talks stressed that both Russia and the United States had common goals and similar approaches to a settlement of the Kosovo crisis. Yeltsin and Annan agreed to closely cooperate in the efforts to search for a political solution to the problem. Also on Thursaday Kofi Annan met the Russian President's special representative in charge of a Balkan settlement Viktor Chernomyrdin to discuss the situation around Yugoslavia.
On Thursday the Russian President's special representative in charge of a Balkan settlement Viktor Chernomyrdin arrived in Bonn, the first leg of his Kosovo mediatory mission, in the course of which he's also due to visit Rome and Belgrade. In Bonn Chernomyrdin started talks with the German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. In Belgrade Viktor Chernomyrdin is due on Friday to brief the Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic on the results of his talks with western leaders and the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in Moscow. As the Yugoslav ambassador to Russia Borislav Milosevic, President Milosevic 's brother, saw Viktor Chernomyrdin off in Moscow, he said Belgrade prepared to receive an international civilian mission under the United Nations flag and with heavy Russian participation. But Yugoslavia objects to any participation of NATO countries. Ambassador Milosevic also said that other likely participants could be Belorus, India, Cyprus, Algeria and Argentina.
Last night and in the small hours of Thursday NATO continued to deliver airstrikes on Yugoslavia, with one missile flying to the fringes of the Bulgarian capital Sofia and destroying a block of flats. Luckily no one suffered. NATO officials tried to deny that the missile had been one of the NATO force in the Balkans but Bulgarian military experts have established that the North Atlantic alliance does use this kind of missiles. This is already the third missile to have fallen in Bulgaria since NATO began to bomb Yugoslavia. Earlier one missile flew to Macedonia. Meanwhile over the past 24 hours in Yugoslavia the worst attacked has been Podgorica, the capital of the republic of Montenegro, which together with Serbia forms the Union Republic of Yugoslavia. The Missiles were fired at an airport in the environs of Podgorica, but deviated and hit residential areas in the city. One woman is reported killed and three persons injured. According to Yugoslav sources, more than a thousand people have been killed and some 5.000 - wounded since the beginning of the air raids against Yugoslavia. Over the period NATO has lost nearly 50 planes and some 1200 cruise missiles.
The Greek Prime-Minister Constatinos Simitis has reaffirmed that his country will not take part in military attacks against Yugoslavia and orientates itself to a political settlement in Kosovo . He was speaking at a meeting of MPs from the ruling Panhellenic Socialist Party - PASOK.
The prominent German Social Democrat Egon Bar has demanded an immediate end to NATO airstrikes on Yugoslavia. Speaking in a press interview he said that a 48 hour suspension of bombardment would largely facilitate the mediatory effort to end the Kosovo crisis by the Russian President's special representative Viktor Chernomyrdin and the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
The Russian Minster of Culture Vladimir Yegorov has expressed grave concern about the destruction of cultural and historical monuments in Yugoslavia. In an interview with the ITAR-TASS news agency the Russian Minister urged intellectuals in Europe to raise their voice in defence of cultural values that belong to the whole world.

International meetings are to take place in Moscow today to consider ways to resolve the crisis in the Balkans. President Boris Yeltsin and Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov will meat with the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan. A meeting of the Foreign Ministers of Russia, Greece, Canada and Mr Annan is also to be held in Moscow today. In a recent statement Mr Annan criticized NATO airstrikes on Yugoslavia and stressed that a political, solution to the Kosovo crisis could not be reached on a field of battle.
In Moscow the United Nations' s Secretary General Kofi Annan is meeting with the Russian president's special envoy in Yugoslavia Viktor Chernomyrdin to discuss a peace settlement on the Balkans. Shortly after the talks Viktor Chernomyrdin will begin his tour of some European countries. He will visit Germany, Italy and Yugoslavia. In Belgrade where he will arrive on Friday the Russian envoy will hold talks with the Yugoslav president Slobodan Miloshevic, and possibly, with the leader of the Kosovo Albanians Ibrahim Rugova. Earlier in a joint statement Ibrahim Rugova and the Serbian president Milan Milutinovic announced their decision to create an interim government of the Kosovo region and to resume direct talks on granting a broad autonomy to the Kosovo Albanians.
NAT0 warplanes last night raided Belgrade`s district of Topcider where old army barracks and the headquarters of the 1st Yugoslav army are situated. This site is more historical than military and servicemen were evacuated long ago. This area came under air attack earlier. The Russian news agency, ITAR-TASS, reports that Yugoslav air defense systems were active in the Belgrade region. A missile launched from a NATO warplane last night fell on the Bulgarian capital, Sofia. The missile damaged the roof of the block of flats in Rosa Street in the western part of the city. President Petr Stoyanov urgently telephoned NATO headquarters in Brussels but it's not known whether NATO gave explanations.
Serbian government officials on Wednesday visited the town of Surdulica, some 300 kilometres south of Belgrade where 20 people were killed and nearly one hundred wounded by a NATO bomb explosion. The one ton bomb destroyed six houses and damaged nearly one hundred. Sixteen children are reported to be among the victims. More than one thousand civilians among them many ethnic Albanians, have been killed in NAT0 bombardment of Yugoslavia. The US General Charles Vald has described as superb the work of NATO, mainly American, pilots who according to him have four dropped thousand bombs on Yugoslavia.
President Bill Clinton told reporters on Wednesday that with favorable weather conditions NATO would carry out airstrikes on Yugoslavia day and night. The Secretary-General of NATO, Javier Solana, has said the air strikes will continue till victory. Meanwhile, the Yugoslav air defense units since the start of NATO aggression on the 24 of March shot down 46 NATO warplanes, six helicopters, eight pilotless planes and 1,182 cruise missiles. The chief of the Yugoslav general staff, Dragoliub Ojdanic, made the announcement in an interview to the newspaper Politika on Wednesday.

April 28

Our correspondent Igor Mikhailov reports from Belgrade.
Air raid sirens walled unexpectedly over Belgrade one hour after midnight. Though it was raining and reverberations of thunder could be heard several NATO planes carried out another air strike hitting the northern district of Rakovitsa. Yesterday's raid on the town of Surdulitsa claimed the lives of 17 peoples, among them 12 children. It left huge craters in places where buildings stood.
Meanwhile, more details of the operation have come to light. According to an expert with the Yugoslav army, Turkish military instructors operating in special camps on the territory of Albania penetrate into Yugoslavia together with units of the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army. It has also become known that the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency George Tenets born in Southern Albania, visited Tirana several times before the NATO operation began.
Politicians, scientists and diplomats from almost 20 countries including Austria, Finland, Britain, Russia, Ukraine, Israel and Japan, now meeting in Belgrade despite the bombardments, say Europe may find itself drawn into a conflagration. Academician Bur from Germany, one of the founders of UNESCO, believes that the United States and the North Atlantic alliance have opted to demonstrate a new world order by the aggression against Yugoslavia.
In his speech which was interrupted by applause Sir Alfred Sherman of Britain said it had been impossible to imagine several years before that the US policy in the Balkans would follow that of Adolf Hitler. However, he said, this is what we are witnessing at the moment. Constant coverages of the plight of Kosovo refugees are designed to create a pretext for the occupation of Yugoslavia, he says. According to Sir Barry Sherman, the new strategy of the United States and NATO induces Russia to strengthen its potential to take the challenge.
Meeting in Pristina on Wednesday the Serbian President Milan Milutinovic and the moderate leader of Koaovo Albanians Ibrahim Rugov adopted a joint statement to form a provisional government in Kosovo. According to the TANUG news agency, the government will work until the conflict is settled. The two leaders agreed to resume direct talks between the government of Serbia and Kosovo Albanians to grant them broad self-rule with the observance of Serbia's territorial integrity. Interhatlonal presence in Kosovo, the statement says, must be agreed upon at negotiations between Serbs and Albanians.

A NATO missile hitting a residential area the southern Serbian town of Surdulica last night destroyed 50 houses and damaged around 600, killing at least two dozen people. The death toll is likely to mount as rescuers continue to sift through the rubble. The NATO headquarters says the missile was targeted at military barracks but went astray. The Yugoslav authorities say the barracks in question had been long since empty. Earlier this month, NATO air attacks struck a passenger train en route from Belgrade to Kosovo and two convoys of Kosovo refugees. The capital Belgrade last night sustained 5 hours of air raids in which three suburbs were bombed. Hundreds of houses there are without window panes. There is no word of casualties so far. Over a thousand people in Yugoslavia have been killed and nearly 4 thousand have received injuries since the start o NATO's air campaign. NATO has lost over 50 planes and more than 100 cruise missiles to Yugoslav flak.
The Foreign Ministry in Belgrade says the Yugoslov Vice Premier Nikola Sainovic and his colleague in Serbia Radko Markovic are planning to sign an important agreement with the moderate leader of the Kosovo Albanians Ibrahim Rugova. A diplomat who made the announcement would not go into details but expected a breakthrough towards peace in Kosovo.
Moscow these days is a hotspot of big power diplomacy over Kosovo. The Russian presidential envoy to the Balkans Victor Chernomyrdin and Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov met in Moscow today with the German Foreign Minister Rudolf Scharping. Both sides believed there is still room for negotiations on the Kosovo problem. Later today, Mr Chernomyrdin met in Moscow with the Foreign Minister of Greece Georgiu Papandreu, and tomorrow, he is expected to hold urgent consultations with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. Tomorrow afternoon, Chernomyrdin will fly to Bonn for talks on Kosovo with the German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.
The Russian Foreign Minister lgor lvanov has expressed doubt that NATO will dare bomb Russian vessels heading for Yugoslav ports. In an interview with the Spanish El Mundo newspaper Mr.lvanov said a move of this kind would lead to serious consequences. If the North Atlantic alliance, he said considers, itself in a position to act without any sanctions from the United Nations, other group of countries may follow suit too. A few days ago NATO declared an oil embargo against Yugoslavia in defiance of the UN resolutions.
Russia and Ukraine are unanimous that the bombardments of Yugoslavia must be stopped. The announcement was made by the Ukrainian Defense Minister Alexander Kuzmuk following talks in Moscow with his Russian counterpart lgor Sergeev. Mr.Kuzmuk said his country opposed using force against a sovereign nation without any sanctions from the United Nations.

NATO warplanes last night hit more air strikes at Yugoslavia in the course of aggression. An air alarm was sounded in Belgrade. The ITAR-TASS news agency says there were several big explosions in the central part of the capital. However an announcer of Serbia's RTS continued courageously to read the latest news. Several missiles were fired at Belgrade's TV center last Friday. The bodies of the dead continue to be pulled out from under the ruins. And in Tuesday a small town of Surdilica in the south of Serbia which has absolutely no military facilities was raided. Bombs and missiles fell on residential quarters. Among the killed are 12 children from seven to 12 years old.
The bodies of three more persons who died in a NATO bombing attack were removed from under the ruins of Belgrade's TV center on Tuesday. The total number of those killed has reached 12.
In the UN Security Council Russia and China have blocked the passage of a draft resolution submitted by Bahrain and Malaysia which under the disguise of helping the return of refugees to Kosovo justified NATO's bombing which is the main reason for people streaming out of Kosovo. At a closed-door meeting on Tuesday the Security Council expressed deep concern over the humanitarian situation in Yugoslavia which continues to worsen.
Russia ready to act as a mediator for Kosovo if both NATO and Yugoslavia are prepared for compromises. This was stated by Russia's foreign minister Igor lvanov in an interview for the "New York Times". He stressed that the latest proposals of Yugoslavia's president Slobodan Milosevic could be a starting point for serious talks. When meeting with Russia's representative Victor Chernomirdin last week, Slobodan Milosevic expressed readiness to agree to the presence of international forces in Kosovo under the aegis of the United Nations. NATO, however, rejects the compromise and demands the right to introduce the forces of the alliance into Kosovo.
A well known Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsin believes that what NATO is saying about protecting Kosovo Albanians is nothing more than a smokescreen for its aggression against Yugoslavia. In the opinion of the Nobel prize winner, and true fighter for justice and Human Rights, NATO by its aggression and by ignoring the United Nations, is establishing an epoch where the right of the strong will rule. NATO is showing its claws to Serbia, deprived of protection and support from anyone. The Russian writer compared NATO with nazi Germany.
NATO could consider suspending temporarily the bombing of Yugoslavia for the period of the withdrawal of Yugoslavia's troops from Kosovo. This was stated by a an official representative of the American State department James Rubin in Washington on Tuesday.
Meanwhile NATO continues to build up its military group in the Balkans. US president Bill Clinton announced the call up of 33.000 reservists. They will be sent take part in NATO's aggression against Yugoslavia. Part of the reservists are air pilots. NATO keeps secret its loses in the Yugoslav campaign.
According to the command of Yugoslavia`s army, over a hundred NATO servicemen were killed in Yugoslavia since the alliance's military campaign began. This includes only members of rescue teams which land from helicopters to look for and save pilots of NATO planes shot down. In an interview for the Belgrade newspaper "Vechernie novosti", a representative of Yugoslavia's army command said Yugoslav servicemen have found a very good tactics for fighting the rescue teams. They hit the helicopter when it takes off and when it most vulnerable. It is said that Americans make up most of those killed. But there are also servicemen from Germany, France, Great Britain and Turkey, Yugoslavia's air defenses have already shot down more than 50 NATO planes.
The Buddhist traditional church in Russia has expressed deep concern over NATO's continuing bombing of Yugoslavia. This is said in a statement circulated today by the Church Council. It stresses that peace can be established only through negotiations and not force. The report has come from the ITAR-TASS news agency.

April 27

Russia's President Boris Yeltsin says that the Russian leadership, consistently supporting Yugoslavia's sovereignty and territorial integrity, is doing all in its power to settle the crisis in and around Kosovo as soon as possible. His message to the Yugoslav President Milosevic on the occasion of Yugoslavia's national holiday - the Constitution Day - notes that Russia is deeply simpathizing with the brotherly people of Yugoslavia, who are suffering from the NATO airstrikes. There's no doubt that in order to reverse the situation and to encourage the resumption of political talks common effort is necessary, and all the parties concerned should display their wisdom and goodwill, emphasized Boris Yeltsin in his message.
The Russian President's special envoy in Yugoslavia Viktor Chernomyrdin held talks in Moscow on Tuesday with the US deputy secretary of state Strobe Talbott. Their conference lasted over 2 hours and they discussed ways out of the crisis around Yugoslavia. According to Mr Talbott, the talks were held in a constructive spirit that was inspired by the telephone talk that Russia's President Yeltsin and the US President Bill Clinton had this Sunday. Strobe Talbott has given a high appraisal of the talk he held with the Russian foreign minister Igor Ivanov on Tuesday. Later, speaking at a press conference, Igor Ivanov said that they had focused on the principles that could lay down the foundations for working out a political agreement for the settlement of the situation in Yugoslavia. Touching on NATO's and the European Union's decision on the introduction of sanctions and embargo against Yugoslavia, the minister emphasized that it is operational only for the NATO and EU member-states. Only the UN Security Council can take decisions on the introduction of sanctions, the minister mentioned.
Earlier today NATO's forces delivered new airstrikes on civilian targets in Yugoslavia. According to the Yugoslav news agency Tanjug, the NATO forces spent 3 hours in the morning to deliver 25 missile strikes on the suburbs of the administrative centre of the Kosovo province Pristina. Among their targets were a civilian airport in locations near Slatina and some other facilities. 3 cluster bombs exploded in the morning near the agricultural technical school in the Pristina suburbs. Missiles were also fired at the cities of Dechani and Pech in the Kosovo province. In the night from Monday to Tuesday the NATO forces hit the television and radio aerials on the roof of the building in Belgrade that was home to the head-quarters of the ruling Socialist Party in Yugoslavia. Particular cynicism of that air raid is that it was carried out shortly after the funerals of a number of workers of the Belgrade TV centre, who were killed as a result of the direct hit of the missile that destroyed the building. A bridge across the Danube in Bachka Palanka came under fire in the north of Serbia.
Russia has attracted the attention of the world community to the very dangerous environmental consequences of NATO's aggression against Yugoslavia. As an official document of the UN General Assembly and Security Council, information was released on that score that was prepared by the state committee for the protection of the environment. The purposeful bombing of the environmentally dangerous targets in Yugoslavia is evidence of the fact that the hostilities are gaining momentum, developing into a wide-scope ecological war, the document notes. It is putting particular emphasis on the fact that there are more than a dozen nuclear power plants in Yugoslavia and its neighbors and a stray missile's strike is fraught with fatal consequences.
The United States insists that a proposed oil embargo against Yugoslavia allow NATO forces to open fire on foreign vessels, including Russian tankers, delivering oil to Yugoslavia. This has been reported by the CNN television with reference to a source in the US Defense Department.
Meanwhile the French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine has came out against a plan by NATO to inspect foreign vessels in order to curb oil supplies to Yugoslavia. Describing it as dangerous, he warned that the plan may have a disastrous effect on relations with third countries, Russia included.
Macedonian President Kiro Gligorov has accused the West of failing to keep its promises to accept Kosovo refugees. He said tens of thousands of refugees had literally flooded his country. In an interview with the CNN the Macedonian leader announced that the number of refugees stood at about 135 thousand and was tending to grow. 30% of Macedonia's population are ethnic Albanians.
An unexploded US aviation bomb has been found near a village in the south of Hungary. According to the local authorities, the bomb must have dropped out of a NATO plane as it flew over Hungary to bomb Yugoslavia.
Russia is planning to change its military doctrine following the adoption of a new strategic concept by NATO. Defense Minister Igor Sergeiev said on Tuesday that decisions passed at NATO's anniversary summit in Washington last week prompted Russia to reconsider most of the clauses on ensuring national security. He reiterated Moscow's concern over the possibility of NATO military operations outside the alliance's zone of responsibility and without approval from the United Nations as stipulated by the concept.

NATO planes have again been bombing civilian targets in Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav news agency TANYUG is reporting bomb blasts in the suburbs of the city of Novy Sad. A television transmitter was bombed down from the roof of a 23-story building in Belgrade. Montenegro's capital Podgorica and the Serbian cities of Nic and Chachak came under fire, last night. The city of Novy Sad lost its last bridge across the Danube River Sunday night. The airport of the city of Sambor, on the Yugoslavia-Hungary border, also came under fire.
President Yeltsin's emissary for the Balkans Viktor Chernomyrdin and United States Vice-president Al Gore have focused, in a telephone conversation, on ways to settle the Yugoslav crisis. Chernomyrdin's adviser Valentin Sergeyev has told the Russian news agency ITAR-TASS that the two men agreed to keep in touch, brief each other on the current developments and facilitate, by doing so, the search for mutually acceptable decisions.
The chief-of-staff of the Yugoslav armed forces General Dragolyub Oidanic has told President Slobodan Milosevic on the occasion of the United Yugoslavia day that the national armed forces are prepared to rebuff the NATO aggression. General Oidanic pointed out that the North Atlantic Alliance had, in the face of the strong resistance from the Yugoslav people and its armed forces, opted for the total destruction of Yugoslavia. He accused the allied forces of destroying hospitals, schools, airports, roads, bridges and monuments of culture. The Yugoslav government says more than five thousand people have been killed or injured over past month. It puts the material damages at several hundred billion US dollars.
A spokesmen for the ethnic Serbs who fled their homes in Yugoslavia, Mikhailo Vuchenic said Monday in Belgrade that the number of Serb refugees had come to total one million. In Vuchenic's view, the NATO attacks on Yugoslavia had only made things worse. Vuchenic lashed out against international human rights organizations which were concentrating on the problems of Kosovo's Albanian community and paying no attention to the plight of the Serb refugees.
The United States is detailing fifty more refuel planes to reinforce the NATO contingent in Yugoslavia. Pentagon press secretary Ken Bacon says it is only a small part of what the NATO Air Force command wants the States to send to Yugoslavia. As many as 650 United States planes are flying missions under NATO command.
The most influential opposition party of Germany - the Christian-Democratic ground forces to combat action in and around Kosovo. Union deputy chairman Volcker Ruhe who used to be Germany's defense minister, told a Union convention Monday that there was a red line no one was allowed to cross. The Union convention which took place in the each German city of Erfurt, demanded that the federal government do its best in a bid to avert escalation of the military conflict in the Balkans and to take advantage of anything so as to bring closer a political accommodation.

April 26

NATO's headquarters in Brussels reports heavy poundings of areas outside the Kosovo capital Pristina over the past 24 hours. The targets included the city's civilian airport. Other reports speak of ferocious overnight bombardments of Serbia's second city Novi Sad, where the last bridge over the river Danude collapsed, of Valeno in central Serbia, where a fuel depot is wide ablaze, and of Sambor near the border with Hungary, where the airport received crippling hits. The capital Belgrade this morning saw the funerals of six journalists killed in a NATO rocketing of the main building of Yugoslav national television in the early hours of Friday. Rescuers continue to sift through the rubble in the hope of finding more survivors of the attack.
Chief of the President's staff Alexander Voloshin has chaired a Kremlin meeting on Kosovo which brought the presidential envoy to the Balkans Victor Chernomyrdin together with the ministers of defence and the interior and the head of the Federal Security Service. Deputy head of the presidential staff Sergey Prikhodko, who spoke for the media after emerging from the get-together, said many powers in the West have realized there is no light at the end of the tunnel of NATO's campaign against Yugoslavia. Russia, he said, would continue extensive consultations with all interested sides with a view to finding a diplomatic solution to the crisis over Kosovo.
At a later meeting today, Mr Chernomyrdin discussed the situation in Yugoslavia with Prime MInister Yevgeni Primakov. According to the agency ITAR-TASS, he will also discuss it with US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott who is due in Moscow today. Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov is expected to join in.
Russia plays an increasingly important role in the searches of ways of settling the Kosovo crisis, the UN secretary-general Kofi Annan said in an interview to the Russian news agency Novosti on the eve of his trip to Germany and Russia. The main purpose of his visit to Moscow, according to the UN secretary-general, is to discuss moves towards ending the Yugoslav crisis. Mr Annan considers it important to overcome the present differences on the issue between members of the UN Security Council. He doesn't have any concrete plan for settling the situation around Kosovo, yet, as he added, he is ready to do all he can to restore peace and security in the Balkan region.
Belgrade agrees with an international presence in Kosovo in the form of a UN civilian mission. That was said at a press-conference in Moscow on Monday by the Yugoslav ambassador in Russia Borislav Milosevic. Such a mission, he added, should exclude representatives of the countries involved in the aggression against Yugoslavia or those which support it. The ambassador, at that, pointed to the need of Russia's large-scale participation in such a force which, in his opinion, should be similar to the OSCE mission that operated in Kosovo earlier.
Most of the Americans reject the idea of invading Kosovo. According to the results of a poll conducted by the Newsweek magazine, 53% of the respondents feel the United States and NATO should give priority to diplomatic effort to achieve settlement at the conference table.
The patriarch of Moscow and entire Russia Alexi II has sharply criticized the new NATO conception which gives the alliance the right to deliver military strikes without a UN resolution. The head of the Russian orthodox church was speaking at a Moscow press-conference on Monday. The establishment of the UNO, patriarch Alexi recalled, was one of the most important achievements of the postwar world order. He announced early consultations with the Vatican, the Conference of European churches and Muslim organizations on peace settlement in the Balkans.

On Sunday night NATO aircraft again bombed Yugoslav territory. According to the news agency TANJUG, missiles destroyed the last third bridge across the Danube in Serbia's second-largest city Novi Sad. A fuel depot was bombed out in Valevo, Central Serbia. NATO aggressors fired nine missiles at the airport in Sombor, a city on the Yugoslav-Hungarian border.
According to deputy head of the presidential administration Sergey Prikhodko, President Yeltsin and his White House colleague Bill Clinton spent an hour and a half on the phone on Sunday discussing Kosovo.
The Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov has said he resolutely opposes NATO's action against Yugoslavia. In a televised interview he underscored that the bombing must be stopped shortly and peace talks be resumed on a peace settlement in Kosovo. Yevgeny Primakov said that if NATO began a ground operation in Kosovo Russia would have to introduce corrections into the budget's expenditure section. What he meant was increased financing of the national defense industry.
The deputy US Secretary of State Strobe Talbott is to arrive in Moscow later today to discuss the situation around Yugoslavia. The American State Secretary Madeleine Albright told a specially called briefing in the White House on Sunday that Mr.Talbott would meet quite a few officials in Russia and that it was very important to continue to remain in contact with Russians and also very important that Russians be part of a settlement process.
The German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer has come out in favour of calling an immediate meeting of the G-8 Foreign Ministers to reach a settlement of the Kosovo crisis at an early date. On the last day of the NATO Washington summit on Sunday he told journalists that he would try to arrange such a meeting, one that would involve Russia. But the Russian news agency ITAR-TASS quotes him as saying that Moscow should meet the West half-way in bringing closer their positions on conditions set to Belgrade.
The International Red Cross President Cornelio Sommaruga, who arrived in the Union Republic of Yugoslavia on Saturday on a humanitarian mission, has urged the North Atlantic alliance to strictly observe the humanitarian rights of Yugoslavs. On Sunday he visited Novi Sad, the administrative center of the Vojevodina province, to see the aftermath of the NATO bombing raids.

April 25

President Yeltsin's envoy to the Balkans Viktor Chernomyrdin may visit NATO capitals shortly to discuss the problem of Kosovo. Speaking in Moscow on Saturday Mr.Chernomyrdin said that a number of NATO leaders had expressed readiness to meet him and that the schedule of his visits would be set on Sunday. Mr.Chernomyrdin is going to meet Ibrahim Rugova and other Kosovo Albanian leaders with a view to organize their talks with Yugoslav leaders. On Thursday Mr.Chernomyrdin held talks in Belgrade with President Miloshevic. The Yugoslav president agreed to international presence in Yugoslavia under the aegis of the United Nations and with the broad participation of Russia.
Amnesty International has demanded that NATO explain the reasons behind the bombardment of the state-run television centre in Belgrade. The organization's representative has said in London that there is nothing to justify the attack. Amnesty International has described the attack as an encroachment on freedom of information.

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