| Back to main page |  

    March 29

  • Russia's President Boris Yeltsin has instructed Prime Minister Yevgeni Primakov and the defence and the foreign ministers Igor Sergeyev and Igor Ivanov to immediately fly to Belgrade on Tuesday for talks with the Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. This is what the presidential press secretary Dmitry Yakushkin said on Monday. The main objective of the talks, says Dmitry Yakushkin, is to find a political solution to the conflicting situation, that arose in view of NATO's actions in Yugoslavia. This is the continuation of the President's principled course, aimed at the political settlement of the conflict, which can't be resolved by military means, emphasized Dmitry Yakushkin. According to ITAR-TASS, the Russian delegation will also include the director of the national foreign intelligence service Vyacheslav Trubnikov. Dmitry Yakushkin says that the further foreign policy actions on Russia's part, including the visits of the NATO member-states will be dependent on the results of the talks in Belgrade.
  • The aim of talks by the Russian delegation in Belgrade is to coordinate moves capable of changing the situation which has created a threat to security in Europe, Russian foreign minister Igor Ivanov said at a news-conference on Monday. According to Ivanov, Washington spokesmen do not rule out the possibility of an air-strike at the center of Belgrade. The administrative center of Kosovo, Prishtina, has already come under such a strike. Among the targets of NATO aircraft are bridges, systems of power and water supply. Using the NATO bombings as a cover, the Russian minister said, Albanian terrorists have launched a large-scale offensive against Serbs actually throughout Kosovo. The minister called attention to the close cooperation of the so-called Kosovo liberation army with NATO forces. For this, representatives of the United States and the West at the OSCE mission, during their evacuation from Kosovo to Macedonia, left behind communications officers who direct NATO planes at Serbian targets. Igor Ivanov also pointed out that the further existence of the contact group for former Yugoslavia may be called in question since in a critical moment, it does not offer any moves that might relax the situation. According to the Russian minister, his country will send humanitarian, aid to Yugoslavia most probably through Hungary.
  • The US F-117 Stealth fighter-bomber was shot down by the Soviet-made Kub-class air-defense system. Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev broke the news when answering a question from the news agency RIA Novosti on Monday. The Kub complex entered Soviet service back in 1967 and has since been upgraded four times.
  • Former Russian cabinet members Boris Nemtsov, Egor Gaidar and Boris Fedorov did not get any powers or instructions either from the president or the government for conducting talks in Yugoslavia, foreign minister Igor Ivanov told an ITAR-TASS correspondent. As the minister confirmed, the three figures did visit the foreign ministry to discuss matters related to Yugoslavia, yet, they can meet with foreign mediators only as private persons.
  • The UN high commissioner department for refugees cannot confirm the NATO assertions about atrocities by the Yugoslav authorities with regard to Kosovo Albanians, a spokesman for the department Chris Yanovski said in an ITAR-TASS interview on Monday. According to him, the information on alleged murders and deportations of civilians was taken from unverified stories told by refugees who left Kosovo after the first NATO air-strikes. The lack of a clear-cut picture was used by NATO propagandists and some of the media in the NATO countries. For example, they claim that the Kosovo conflict has led to the appearance of 500 thousand refugees. By estimates of the UN High Commissioner department for refugees, in the past two days, about 30 thousand people arrived from Kosovo to Albania and 10 thousand - to Montenegro.
  • Ukrainian president Leonid Kutchma will probably meet with Yugoslav president Slobodan later this week to discuss the possibility of a peaceful solution to the Kosovo problem. It is reported that Ukrainian foreign minister Boris Tarasyuk told Kutchma that Milosevic had expressed his prepared-news to meet with him. Boris Tarasyuk and Ukrainian defense minister Alexander Kuzmuk visited Belgrade last Saturday on a mediation mission.
  • Four American bombers "B52" left an air-base in the south-west of Britain this morning to bomb Yugoslav territory. Another three machines of the same type are about to leave the Fareford base, in Gloustershire county. "B-52" is equipped with cruise missiles have already taken part in airstrikes against Yugoslavia. Earlier, the NATO forces' command announced the beginning of a new phase in the aggressive operation in the Balkan region. It provides for an increase in the number of targets, subject to bombing.
  • Russia's defence Minister Igor Sergeyev has said that the American F-117 plane, designed according to the Stealth technology, was shot down by the Yugoslav aircraft defences with the help of the Russian-made missile. He has said that since the start of the aggression the NATO planes have carried out nearly 750 raids and that 315 missiles were fired at the targets in Yugoslavia. According to Igor Sergeyev, 1000 civilians were killed as a result of the bombardment of Yugoslavia, that is, 10 flues as many as the number of servicemen.
  • According to the Yugoslav News agency TANJUG, NATO has lost five aircraft in Yugoslavia over the past 24 hours, in what is the result of the second stage of mass air raids on Yugoslavia. The stage got underway on Sunday and involved over 60 bombers. But a spokesman for the Pentagon has said in Washington he knows nothing of this loss. So far the United States has admitted the loss of only one aircraft of the "Stealth" type. An the second stage more targets will come under bombing but NATO planes will have to enter the range of action of the Yugoslav antiaircraft defences, which have by no means been destroyed in the first stage. On Sunday the US President Bill Clinton called for more powerful strikes on Yugoslavia. When President Clinton's aide Samuel Berger was asked by a journalist if NATO planes were going to drop bombs on Belgrade bridges and destroy the power supply system he said this was not ruled out. Since NATO launched its aggression on the 24th of this month, over 120 people in Yugoslavia have been killed and more than 400 - wounded, including women, children and old people. On Sunday the Yugoslav Government decided to use all resources available to defend the country.
     
  • The deputy Yugoslav Prime-Minister Vuk Draskovic has said Belgrade is prepared for a peaceful settlement in Kosovo. But he has stressed that no talks can be held under bombs falling on Yugoslavia. In an interview with the Russian TV channel NTV Draskovic also said that Kosovo terrorists should give up their criminal activities. On Sunday in Belgrade the high-ranking Yugoslav official met a delegation of Russian politicians under Yegor Gaidar, a delegation that following Belgrade plans to visit Rome and Washington to secure a compromise decision to do away with tension in the Balkans.
  • The Belgrade-based newspaper POLITIKA says in its Monday's issue that the first four days of NATO bombing raids caused 50 billion dollar worth of damage to Yugoslavia. According to the director of the national statistical department Milovan Zhivkovic, the direct and indirect material loss can have catastrophic consequences for the nation. Zhivkovic said Belgrade should demand that the United States and other NATO countries should compensate Yugoslavia for the losses inflicted after their aggression had been over.
     
  • Following Greece Portugal is the second NATO member country to have come out for the resumption of a peaceful dialogue on Kosovo at an early date. Prime-Minister Antonio Gutierres said on Sunday that Portugal, without going beyond the framework of NATO solidarity, felt it was necessary to make use of any opportunity to resume peace talks on a Kosovo settlement.
     
  • Greece and Macedonia have said they're against the use of their territory for military operations against third countries. This came in a statement at a meeting in Athens by the two countries' Foreign Ministers Georgis Papandreu and Alexander Dimitrov. The two officials imply the NATO troops in Macedonia that are stationed for invading neighbouring Yugoslavia. Currently the NATO force in Macedonia numbers 12,000 but could be increased in case of need.
     
  • The Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee said on Sunday the NATO aggression against Yugoslavia had induced his country to give more thought to an initiative by the Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, first aired in New Delhi in December, for Russia, India and China to form a strategic triangle between them. He also called on NATO to put an immediate end to its air raids on Yugoslavia. The Non-Aligned Movement, he also announced, is planning a special get-together on the crisis in the Balkans. Yugoslavia, he recalled, was among the founding members of that organization, which now embraces over 100 states.
     
  • China's Foreign Minister Tan Jiaosiuanh has called for an immediate end to the NATO military action against Yugoslavia. According to the ITAR-TASS news agency, he was speaking during his visit to Germany and said that the NATO attacks only resulted a in human casualties and would not only fail to bring any peace but would on the contrary, make the situation even more involved. Tan Jiaosiuanh reaffirmed China's invariable stand whereby Beijing rejects the use of force in international affairs.

    March 28

  • NATO forces today hit again the outskirts of Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Aocording to news agencies, at least five big explosions were heard at 10 in the morning Moscow time. The air alarm kept sounding practically throughout last night.Till seven in the morning NATO planes bombed the suburbs of the Yugoslav capital. The authorities said the bombs were meant for a Yugoslav military airfield and a tele-communication center on Avala hill, 15 kilometers south of Belgrad. There were explosions last night also in the city of Navi-Sad in the north of Serbia and in Pristina, the administrative center of the Kosovo province.Rockets there fell close to the local branch of Serbian television. Bombs were dropped on the outskirts of Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro which together with Serbia makes up the Union republic of Yugoslavia. According to the country`s civil defence, big material damage has been done. Meanwhile the military have reported that Yugoslavia`s air defence have not only not been knocked out- but remain practically untouched.
  • NATO's secretary general Javier Solana told the supreme allied commander in Europe on Saturday evening to extend the scale of air operations against Yugoslavia.This was announced by an official representative of NATO Jemmie Shea. He stressed that the decision of the secretary general was taken with the support of the governments of the NATO countries which are determined to stop the offensive of the Serbian forces on the Albanian population of Kosovo and prevent a humanitarian catastrophy.Javier Solana pointed out that a bigger scale of operation would make it possible for the NATO command to conduct more intensive action against the armed forces of Yugoslavia.
  • The outlawed Liberation Army of Kosovo has circulated a leaflet with guidelines for members of the province's ethnic Albanian community to find their way to locations in Albania and Macedonia in flight from what the separatists describe as an imminent crackdown by Serbian security forces. The move smacks of a NATO-orchestrated propaganda campaign to depict Serbia as a perpetrator of genocide.
  • The Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexi the Second condemns NATO's aggression as a deadly sin. In a sermon in a monastery near Moscow today, he accused the European and North American NATO nations of being hypocritical in their avowed Christianity and said they were trampling on Serbia's Christian soul using the pretext of defending peace. He spoke after receiving reports of NATO bombs hitting a medieval Orthodox convent in Kosovo on Saturday.
  • A newspaper report in Sofia says volunteers from Bulgaria have started to report for service with Yugoslav army units in Belgrade and Serbia's second city NIsh in the southeast. The retired Bulgarian Colonel Pomiu Kolev is quoted as saying nearly 450 prime age men have joined his Patriotic Volunteer Legion. All are eagerly looking forward to a fight with NATO aggressors in Yugoslavia.
  • The American-led air assault on Yugoslavia is nearing the end of its fourth consecutive day. Air-raid sirens wailed in Belgrade and Pristina on Sunday as NATO bombs were hitting hospitals, schools, communications centers, water mains, farmhouses and even refugee camps. Yugoslavia's civilian losses had reached about 120 killed and over 400 injured by Friday and are certain to have further mounted since then. In the meantime, NATO Secretary General Javier Solana has instructed the Alliance's top brass to widen the scope of bombings south of the 44th parallel which cuts Yugoslavia in halves.
  • Yugoslav air defenses brought down an American F-117 fighter bomber last night. National television showed the wreckage of the aircraft burning on the ground 45 kilometers northwest of Belgrade. The Americans acknowledged the loss, issuing an awkward hint that mechanical failure might have been the cause. The latest grounding brings to 11 the number of NATO planes shot down since the start of the current air assault on Yugoslavia on Wednesday. As many as 15 TOMAHAWK missiles have been shot down as well. NATO has confirmed only one loss, that of the ill-fated F-117 last night. The F-117 jet employs state-of-the-art stealth technology. It's almost invisible to radars and has been widely trumpeted as completely invulnerable. The US Air Force extensively used it to fly most dangerous missions during the operations DESERT STORM in 1991 and DESERT FOX in December last year.
  • President Yeltsin has instructed Interior Minister Sergey Stepashin to mount an emergency investigation of an incident about 10 GMT in which an unknown gunman driving by left 7 rifle bullets in the maim facade of the American Embassy building in Moscow. No one was injured in the attack. The attacker escaped. Mr Yeltsin's media spokesman Dmitri Yakushkin said this in an interview with a popular independent radio station this afternoon. He said the American side would receive the necessary clarifications and blasted the shooting as an act of high treason designed to cast a black shadow over this country's mammoth effort to find a peaceful solution to the crisis over Kosovo.

  • When speaking over the telephone with Russia`s prime-minister Evgeni Primakov, the president of France Jacques Chirac expressed firm belief that Russia plays a major role in searching for a peaceful solution of the Kosovo problem. The French president called on Moscow to do all it can to make it known to the president of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic that ending the military confrontation depends at present only on him.
  • American cruise missiles in Ygoslavia are only 20 per cent effective. The ITAR-TASS news agency was told that by a military and diplomatic source in Moscow. Yugoslavia has made good use of how to combat the missiles when they fired in Iraq in 1992 and in Bosnia in 1995.The Yugoslav army and its air defence units held special training exercises in advance.Various ways of " deceiving" the rockets' computers are likewise widely used. That is more the air defence units are constantly changing their location which also misleads NATO's rockets. According to Yugoslav sources, eleven planes and more than a dozen of rockets of the alliance have been shot down since the NATO aggression against Yugoslavia began. This however is stubburnly denied by the alliance. More than a hundred people died in the air raids, mainly civilians.And an even bigger number of persons have been wounded.
  • Yugoslavia`s air defence units shot down on Satarday one of America`s most advanced stealth warplane × F-117, Nighthawk. The plane is practically invisible to enemy radars, and he costs at least 16 times more than an ordinary warplane that is about 45 million dollars. Serbia's television showed for several minutes tha falling fragments of the burning plane. A representative of the US defence department officially confirmed the loss of the plane. He said the pilot was rescued by spacial group in which American servicemen took part.

March 27

  • On Saturday afternoon the NATO wariest scooped down on Yugoslav targets again. British Defense Secretary Robert Robertson told a news conference in London earlier in the day that the new air strikes had originally been planned to come in the morning but bad weather had forced the planes to return back to base in Italy. The air raids early on Friday, the most fierce since Wednesday, destroyed a drug plant near Belgrade which sent toxic fumes spreading across the city.
  • Ethnic Albanians and Serbs were trying hard on Saturday to fight chaos in Pristina in the wake of the third straight night of NATO air strikes. Local communications have been knocked out and the majority of stores closed down, fallen victim to marauding local gangs. According to foreign newsmen reporting from Belgrade, residents of outlying villages which have been hardest hit by the NATO air strikes, are fleeing their homes and trying to find shelter with friends living closer to the city center.
  • Thousands of people across Europe protested NATO's continuing air strikes on Yugoslavia on Saturday. Protesters in The Hague demanded putting US President Bill Clinton and NATO Secretary General Xavier Solana before the International tribunal investigating war crimes in the former Yugoslavia. This demand was contained in a petition the protesters submitted to the tribunal's headquarters in The Hague. In Berlin 15,000 people converged on the city's central square denouncing the NATO air strikes as a violation of the United Nations Charter, the international law and the German Constitution. In Vienna, protest rallies have been going on since Friday and will continue into Sunday.
  • Several thousand people gathered in front of the US Embassy in Moscow on Saturday in the third straight day of protests against NATO's bombings of Serbia. Hundreds of elite OMON police ring the building keeping the crown several meters back on the sidewalk. In the past two days the protesters hurled bottles and eggs at the building and burnt US flags in front of the embassy compound.

  • President Boris Yeltsin has sent a letter to his Yugoslav counterpart Slobodan Milosevic supporting the Yugoslav people and condemning NATO air strikes against his country. The Kremlin said the President had also written about "concrete questions touching on the Kosovo situation", but gave no details.
  • Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov sees no alternative to a peaceful resolution of the Kosovo conflict. Speaking in the State Duma, the Lower House of parliament on Wednesday, he stressed that the NATO air strikes had dealt a major blow to post-war security in Europe and elsewhere in the world. He also said that the NATO aggression against Yugoslavia should be looked into by the World Court in The Hague adding that, besides hurting the Serbs and ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, the military operation was also harmful to ethnic Hungarians and other nationalities living in Yugoslavia. He said, however, that Russia would not respond by taking any action that would risk dragging it into war and would be working hard to get the warring sides back to the negotiating table. Russia, he said, remains a trusty partner ready for equal-footed cooperation with everyone. He said Russia would consider asking the UN General Assembly to hold a special session to discuss the crisis if the NATO air strikes continued and would also appeal to the International Commission for Human Rights.
  • Contrary to the NATO countries' claims that their warplanes were only hitting military targets in Yugoslavia, civilian facilities are also being destroyed and peaceful civilians killed. Speaking after the Saturday night air raids, the biggest since the strikes began on Wednesday. Yugoslav Foreign Minister Zivadin Jovanovic reported many civilian casualties. A number of hospitals, schools, stores telephone and water communications have already been knocked out throughout the country. Toxic fumes reported in Belgrade have apparently come from a drug factory hit by NATO missiles. Yugoslav Vice Premier Zoran Lilic said, meanwhile, that 9 NATO warplane had already been downed by his country's air defense batteries. The US military command insists that all the planes safely returned to base. It has also denied Yugoslav media reports on Friday that a NATO plane had been shutdown over the Bosnian Serb Republic.
  • The NATO air strikes on Yugoslavia may destroy the country's chemical plants and intoxicate the Yugoslav population and that of the neighboring countries. This warning comes from a Russian expert who has helped build a number of such facilities In Yugoslavia. He said there are 20 chemical plants there whose destruction would seriously damage the people's health. These are a pharmaceutical factory just outside Belgrade, a polyethylene-making plant 20 kilometers away from the city and a mineral fertilizer plant some 14 kilometers away from the capital.
  • Well-informed Russian intelligence officials have reiterated earlier reports about NATO members getting increasingly differed on the need to continue their ongoing military crackdown on Yugoslavia. Greece and Italy are reportedly having big doubts to this score and, according to the newspaper US News and World Report, CNN and a Gallup poll, nearly 40 percent of Americans oppose the air strikes and would hate to see the United States being sucked any deeper into the conflict. A televising poll just conducted in Britain has shown 73 percent of Britons criticising the air strikes.
  • The city council in Aviano, the Italian city which is home to the US air base now being used by NATO warplanes hitting Yugoslavia, has demanded an immediate end to the air strikes and resumption of the peace talks on Kosovo.
  • It is for the third day now that the demonstrations of protest against the bombardment of Yugoslavia are still in progress near the American embassy in Moscow. Over 3000 people are taking part in the action of protest today. The embassy is sealed by policemen, who are preventing the protesters from approaching it. Earlier they threw bottles with paint at the embassy and burned American flags in front of it.


    •  

  • THE EMBASSY OR THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA IN MOSCOW HAS SENT A LETTER TO THE VOICE OF RUSSIA, GIVING INFONUATION ON YUGOSLAVIA'S CIVILIAN LOSSES AS A RESULT OF NATO'S AGGRESSION.
    • This is the full text:
    The airstrikes of the NATO aggressors are increasingly aimed at the cities and settlements all over Yugoslavia. The number of victims among the civilians is increasing and more and more civilian facilities are suffering. The NATO bombings are destroying the centres for refugees, the water-mains, private houses, telephone and other communications, mainlines, farms, and industrial facilities.
    - In Kurshumlia the bombs have destroyed the centre for refugees from Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia, who fled civil wars in that region. As a result, 11 people were killed and 24 wounded.
    - A center for refugees, situated near the city of Novi-Sad has also come under airstrikes. No casualty figures have been given so far.
    - The water-main and two secondary schools were damaged in Rakovitse near Belgrade.
    - In Pristina the airstrikes have destroyed an agricultural school, the building of the agricultural faculty, the plant producing shock-absorbers, and the building of the engineering department. The plastics factory has completely burned down.
    - The airstrikes have hit a number of settlements in Kosovo and Metohija Lukara (the Serb-populated villages) and the Grachanitsa Settlement, where the ancient Grachanitsa Serb Monastery is located.
    - The airstrikes have hit the Serb Shilovo Settlement near the city of Gnilane, and several houses were destroyed.
    - 2 cruise missiles and several bombs fell in locations near Kosovska-Mitrovitsa.
    - The airstrikes that were delivered at the city of Panchevo, have destroyed not only the Utva aircraft plant but also the agricultural school and the Minel enterprise. Besides, considerable damage was done to dozens of shops and apartments.
    - The airstrikes have hit a settlement near Danilovgrad, near which there are no military facilities at all, and only civilians have suffered.
    - One of the missiles has damaged part of the city of Jakovitsa.
    - The Leskovats suburbs have also suffered. Great damage was done to the settlements of Medja and Drankovats as well.
    - Several private houses were partly destroyed in the Ladzhevtsy Settlement near Kralevo.
    - One cruise missile has struck at the Miyakovtsy Farm near Chachak.
    - Besides, the airstrikes have hit the Bukulya Mountain, where the radio and TV transmitting tower is located.
    According to reports of March 26th, 1999, nearly 120 people were killed and about 400 wounded before 3 o'clock. The number of victims of the NATO air raids is increasing with every passing day.
    The NATO airstrikes have put under threat such Yugoslavia's natural riches as the National Kopaonik Park and some other preserves. The ministry for the protection of the environment has sent its appeal to the international organizations for the protection of the natural environment, in which, among other things, attention is paid to the danger to the neighboring countries and to the possible ecological catastrophes, in case chemical factories are destroyed.

  • Last night NATO delivered another series of air strikes on Yugoslavia. Belgrade was rocked by some 10 explosions - the more powerful since NATO launched its missile and bomb attacks on Wednesday. According to news agency reports, big fires broke out in the capital city. Following the bombing raid the smell of chemical substances spread throughout the city. It is held that one bomb had hit a pharmaceutical factory in the city suburb. The authorities recommended that the residents should use self-made gas-masks made of water-soaked towels to protect themselves from the gas cloud. Kosovo's administrative centre Pristina, and the towns Prizren, Dyakovitsa and Gnilane also came under air attacks. And NATO warplanes likewise dropped bombs on the environs of Podgoritsa - the capital of Montenegro, which together with Serbia forms the Union Republic of Yugoslavia. No casualties have been reported. But the previous attacks claimed the lives of more than 100 people, basically civilians, and many more were injured. According to reports by Yugoslav television, NATO aircraft drop the banned cassette bombs. Yugoslav antiaircraft defence units are reported to have downed 4 planes and 15 cruise missiles. Two NATO pilots have been taken prisoner.


    •  

  • An ecological catastrophe may break out in Europe if a NATO cruise Missile "carelessly", as it ware, drops near Zagreb, in Croatia bordering on Yugoslavia, where a US-made nuclear reactor is located. This came in a statement at a news conference on Friday by the chief of the Russian General Staff Operations Department Colonel-General Yury Balyuevsky. According to him, this is not ruled out even though Americans guarantee that their cruise missile hit targets with utmost precision.


    •  

  • The Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov has said that NATO's strikes on Yugoslavis are a double crime. Speaking at a news conference in Moscow he said that was aggression against a sovereign state and undisguised genocide of the peoples of Yugoslavia. Ivanov pointed out that in compliance with international law those guilty should be held responsible and that the Hague-based International Tribunal for former Yugoslavis should take up the case. The Russian Foreign Minister said that he had suggested that the International Contact Group members should meet but that the US turned the proposal down. The Contact Group comprises Russia, the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Italy.


    •  

  • Members of the Russian Parliament's lower house- the State Duma - will go in an emergency full-scale meeting later this Saturday over NATO's missile and bomb strikes on Yugoslavia. Yesterday the Duma faction and deputy group leaders met Prime-Minister Yevgeny Primakov and expressed their solidarity with the position of the President and Government on the developments in Yugoslavia. The Russian President and his Cabinet see the NATO bombings of the Balkan country as flagrant violation of international law.


    •  

  • On Friday Russia's chief military representative at NATO General Viktor Zavarzin left Brussels on orders from the Russian leadership. Also on Friday the head of NATO's information service wag told to leave Moscow. The Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov has announced that Moscow breaks off all contact with NATO until the North Atlantic alliance ends its aggression against Yugoslavia.


    •  

  • The NATO bombing raids on Yugoslavia have only served to strengthen the patriotic spirit of the nation and united the people around their political leaders. According to France Presse report, numerous man-volunteers keep turning up at the call-up centers. The report also quotes a University professor as saying that he has never really liked the Yugoslav President Milosevic but now admits that Milosevic "acts as a true patriot".


    •  

  • The Russian peacekeepers in Bosnia have bean withdrawn from the operations command of the American headquarters of the Stabilization force that operates in this former Yugoslav republic. The Russian airborne brigade deployed in the area of the town Uglevik, in the North-East of Bosnia, now reports directly to the Russian General Staff.

March 26

  • The NATO forces on Friday carried out a third wave of strikes on Yugoslavia. Air-raid warning sirens could be heard in Belgrade and the administrative center of Kosovo - Pristina. News agencies report, the operation involved planes basing in Italy and warships in the Adriatic from which cruise missiles were fired.


    •  

  • Russian foreign minister Igor Ivanov has accused the North Atlantic Alliance of pursuing a genocidal policy in Yugoslavia, Ivanov said in an interview with the Russian news agency Interfax that charges against the Alliance must be considered by the International Court of Justice. Ivanov also said that Belgrade was willing to resume the peace negotiations. He suggested that the international contact group meet to draw up a political accommodation formula and announced that the Russian government would render humanitarian aid to Yugoslavia. Two members of the North Atlantic Alliance - Greece and Italy - have already voiced serious doubt over the need for military action against Yugoslavia. A group of British lawmakers have written prime minister Blair to tell him they condemn the bombing raids. Seven members of the lower house of the German legislature have also condemned the Allied action against Yugoslavia.


    •  

  • The NATO air raids on Yugoslavia make primarily civilians suffer. Belgrade-based sources say more than 120 people have been killed and more than 400 have received injuries. Colonel-General Yuri Baluyevski of the general staff of the Russian armed force says the civilian casualty lists are ten times longer than the casualty lists of the armed forces. Photographs made from aboard Russian space satellites show, Baluyevski says, that the NATO attacks on military targets can hardly be described as successful. She Yugoslav antiaircraft defense system is still doing very well. It downed three enemy planes and 15 missiles Thursday night. Even though Allied sources say exclusively military installations come under attack, many civilian facilities, including radio and TV stations, as well as post and telegraph offices, have suffered damage. The Japanese Kyodo Tsushin agency says about ten trade centers were destroyed Thursday in Kosovo's administrative capital of Pristina.


    •  

  • The Americans are divided on the use of force in Yugoslavia. An opinion poll conducted jointly by the Gallup Service, the CNN company and the USA Today newspaper, shows that about 46 percent of Americans favor the use of force while 43 percent oppose it. The Wall Street Jouran feels Preside Clinton has, in spite of all his efforts, failed to win unanimous support of his plans to attack Yugoslavia.


    •  

  • Russian chief of general staff Anatoly Kvashnin has refused to meet with his US counterpart Henry Shelton. Kvashnin sees Shelton's request for a meeting untimely.


    •  

  • Chairman Jiang Zemin of China has demanded an immediate end to the Allied bombings of Yugoslavia. Jiang Zemin is, at present, touring Europe. Chinese foreign minister Tang Jiaxuan and Chinese chief of general staff Fu Quanyou have declared that the Kosovo crisis admits only a negotiated solution. The Beijing-based government mouthpiece China Daily is urging the international community to raise a voice of protest against the brutal action against Yugoslavia.


    •  

  • Indian foreign minister Jaswant Singh has urged the non-aligned nations to take one position on the Kosovo problem and sail for an immediate end to the Allied bombing of Yugoslavia.


    •  

  • Iraq has demanded an end to the NATO air raids on Yugoslavia, Iraqi foreign minister Mohammed Said as-Sakhaf has accused the United States and its allies of taking action under jungle law. US and British war planes attacked, without United Nations authorization, Iraq, last December.


    •  

  • The sociological agency STEM says more than 60 percent of Czechs feel apprehensive about the possible spillover of the Kosovo crisis. A major armed conflict may, in their view, present an immediate threat to their country. Forty percent of Czechs oppose the use of force by the North Atlantic Alliance against Yugoslavia.

  • President Boris Yeltsin on Friday met top Russian officials in the Kremlin to discuss ways of stopping NATO's air strikes against Yugoslavia and prospects for the resumption of the peace talks. The meeting was attended Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, Defense Minister Igor Sergeiev, Military Chief of Staff Anatoly Kvshnin, Director of the Intelligence Service Viacheslav Trubnikov, and head of the General Staff Chief Intelligence Department Valentin Korabelnikov. Before the conference Premier Primakov met the leaders of all parliamentary factions which had strongly denounced the aggression and supported the position of the President and government on the issue.


    •  

  • Military and political sources in Belgrade have announced that over two days of NATO's air raids on Yugoslavia over 120 people have been killed and more than 350 wounded. The strikes were delivered not just on military targets as claimed by NATO but on civilian sites as well, including TV and radio centers, and communication facilities. One of the missiles fell on the town of Dzhakovice. Serbian television reports 3 NATO warplanes and 15 cruise missiles were shot down last night.


    •  

  • Russia has been warned by a friendly state that NATO is plotting a provocation against Russian soldiers serving in the peace-keeping force in Bosnia as part of a propaganda campaign for its military action in Yugoslavia. The Russian news agency RIA reports that mercenaries are being recruited among Serbs who are to attack Russian servicemen. The aim of the attack is to demonstrate the allegedly hostile attitude to Russia on the part of Bosnian Serbs.


    •  

  • According to American CNN television, Friday will see yet another, already a third wave of NATO bombing raids on Yugoslavia. This was reported with reference to information obtained from high-ranking officials in the Secretary of Defence. They said that further military actions by NATO would depend on the assessment of the damage caused by the first three waves of air attacks.


    •  

  • Menwhile, Yugoslav Vice-premier Vuk Drashkovic has called for an immediate end to the NATO aggression and for a political solution to the Kosovo crisis. He told a news conference in Belgrade that Yugoslavia was ready to sign a plan for a political settlement but remained sharply opposed to the introduction of foreign troops to Kosovo. On Friday North Korea joined international protests against NATO air raids. Its Foreign Ministry spokesman announced in Pyongyang that the problem of Kosovo was an internal matter for Yugoslavia and should be resolved without outside interference. He warned that the flame of war might spill over to neighboring countries.


    •  

  • The Speaker of the Lower House of Russian Parliament Gennadi Seleznev, now in Havana, has met Cuban leader Fidel Castro. The talks focused on bilateral relations and burning international problems, including the situation in the Balkans. The Russian news agency Itar-Tass in its correspondence from Cuba notes that Mr Castro described NATO's attack on Yugoslavia an absurdity doomed to a failure. Mr Seleznev made a stop-over in Havana on his way home after official visits to Peru and Colombia. 

  • Yugoslavia has lived through another wave of NATO air raids. Many military and civilian sites were destroyed Thursday night in the south of Serbia. There were two big explosions near administrative center of Montenegro-- Podgoritsa where an aerodrome is located. Cruise missile fell on the village of Doni-Grlic near which are the barracks of the Yugoslav army - also in Montenegro. At midnight in the wake of a massive air raid on the Serbian city of Kralevo the local TV broadcast an urgent appeal to surgeons and voluntary blood donors to rush to local hospitals. According to Serbia's mass media, there were bombing raids last night on Belgrade, Pristina, Kosovska-Mitrovitsa, Prizren, Leskovez and Chachak. The number of casualties is being established. The TANYUG news agency says Yugoslavia's anti-aircraft units shot down two NATO planes and destroyed 15 cruise missiles.


    •  

  • The US Administration has taken preliminary stock of the results of the first wave of bombing strikes in Yugoslavia. The Russian news agency Novosti, referring to the information received by CNN television from a high-ranking official in the White House who asked not to be named, says he qualified the results as " so-so". He confirmed that the results of the air strikes show that the air campaign against Yugoslavia won't be completed quickly. And NBC television, quoting sources in the US defence department reported that the Pentagon experts admit that the bombing raids haven't yet been able to knock out the structures of Yugoslavia's anti-aircraft defences and they remain operational.
  • Prime-minister Evgeny Primakov has re-affirmed Russia's strong condemnation of the bombing strikes at Yugoslavia. On Thursday evening he spoke over the telephone with the Prime Minister of Great Britain Tony Blair. Evgeny Primakov pointed out that the military action against Yugoslavia only hampers the search for a political solution of the Kosovo crisis and demanded that it be ended at once. Earlier the same day the Russian Prime Minister in a television interview described NATO's aggression as a heavy blow to the established world order, the prestige of the United Nations and the Security Council.


    •  

  • Yugoslavia, a UN member-state, has become the victim of NATO aggression, and if an end is not put to that aggression, other UN member-states will be within the right to offer their aid to Yugoslavia in repulsing it. This is what Russia's Foreign Minister told a press conference in Moscow on Thursday. With its actions, NATO, in fact, has trampled on the relevant resolutions adopted earlier, said Igor Ivanov. He has said that Russia gave reliable information to NATO about the terrorists in Kosovo, but the Western countries have taken no measures to stop the flow of arms and money to Kosovo or to the smuggling of drugs from Kosovo to Europe.


    •  

  • The UN Security Council meets today to take a vote on the draft resolution on Yugoslavia submitted by Russia. Its objective is to demand an immediate end to NATO's military action against a sovereign country. This was stated by an assistant to Russia's ambassador at the United Nations ,Yury Fedotov, in New York on Thursday evening. The draft resolution stresses that the action taken in circumvention of the Security Council is being carried out in violation of the UN Charter. Russia, said the diplomat, calls for halting hostilities at once and resuming talks on Kosovo.


    •  

  • Fighters of the unlawful Albanian "Kosovo Liberation Army" have taken advantage of the NATO air strike to attack the city of Dyakovitsa, near the border with Albania. This was reported today by the TANYUG news agency in Belgrade. The Serbian security forces are said to have beaten off the attack which was made on Thursday evening, immediately after a cruise missile exploded in the old part of the city. This was during the second wave of NATO air raids on Yugoslavia. The news agency says the explosion caused heavy casualties and damage.

  • The Yugoslav Deputy Prime Minister Vuk Draskovic says his country will call an immediate halt to its military operations in Kosovo as soon as NATO ends its raids. In a telephone interview with the British SKY NEWS television channel this night, he also demanded that the ethnic Albanian separatists in Kosovo stop attacking local Serbs once the Yugoslav offensive against separatist guerrillas has come to an end. 

March 25

  • Speaking in Moscow on Thursday at a joint press conference with the Russian military chief of staff General Anatoly Kvashnin, Russia's foreign minister Igor Ivanov said: Some of the Western mass media means are trying to prove that NATO's action is not an act of aggression. In view of this, I would like to mention that in line with the definition of aggression, that was formulated by the United Nations' General Assembly in 1974 and that was unanimously approved by the voters, including the United States, the bombardment by the armed forces of one state the territory of another state is an act of aggression. And the document puts a particular emphasis on the fact that none of the considerations, be that political, economic, military and other considerations can serve as a justification for any aggression. 


    •  

  • The meeting of protest against the bombardments of Yugoslavia near the United States' embassy in Moscow ended at 22.10. As soon as it ended the building of the United States' embassy lost its usual yellow colour and started resembling an abstract many-coloured picture. Despite the insistent demands of the law enforcement bodies, up to the latest moment the participants in the meeting threw bottles, fire crackers , eggs, plastic bottles, and glass containers with coloured ink. At 18.55 a group of young people made an attempt to force their way into the American embassy through the police barriers. This invasion was not without brief clashes with the police, with the protesters throwing bottles and stones at the policemen. According to preliminary estimates, at least 1.500 people gathered near the embassy, and approximately as many people were at the approaches to the building. There are reasons to believe that at ll.o 'clock tomorrow morning the meeting of protest near the American embassy will continue.


    •  

  • Members of Parliament, peace campaigners and some of Britain's own ethnic Serbs have been ploketing 10 Downing Street to impress on Prime Minister Tony Blair their demand of an immediate end to the NATO air assault against Federal Yugoslavia. They carried placards calling leaders in the Vest short- sighted, scolding Foreign Secretary Robin Cook for foul play and accusing HATO of practicing organized neo-Nazism. A British national, of Serb descent Alexander Chiohili has told the agency RIA-IOVOSTI he is flying to Belgrade to volunteer for active service with the Yugoslav army. It's simply inconceivable, he is reported as saying, that some of Yugoslavia's wartime allies should now be bombing Yugoslavia and doing so hand in hand with the German Lutfwaffe. The demonstrators are going to stay outside the Prime Minister's house all night. Great Britain is home to around 50 thousand ethnic Serbs. 

  • According to the Russian military headquarters, during NATO's Missile strike against Yugoslavia one Tornado plane, one F-16 plane and several cruise missiles were shot down. The commander-in-chief of the Russian Headquarters says that the statement of NATO's leaders that the airstrikes will be delivered north of the 44th parallel do not correspond to the facts. He be acted that the Yugoslav armed forces lost nearly 10 serviceman and that about 20 people were wounded. As for the damage, done to the armaments, military hardware and military facilities, nothing was injured, said Anatoly Kvashnin. Over 50 civilians were killed and more than 200 wounded, he said. 


    •  

  • PRIME MINISTER PRIMAKOV DEMANDS AN END TO NATO AIR RAIDS ON YUGOSLAVIA 
     Prime Minister Primakov describes the NATO air raids against Federal Yugoslavia as a terrible tragedy. We offer a footage of what he said in an interview with Russian Independent Television on Thursday night:
    "The bombardments must come to an immediate end. They are much more than an international accident. They also represent much more than an isolated act of aggression against an independent state. I believe they've dealt a heavy blow to the entire world order established following the end of World War Two and supposed to have been cemented since the end of the Cold War. The NATO attack constitutes a flagrant interference in the internal affairs of Federal Yugoslavia. That country's methods of solving its problems may not be to everyone's liking, but outside intervention can only go ahead on the strength of authorization by the Security Council of the UN".
    Yevgeny Primakov believes that today's airstrikes on Yugoslavia are a blow on the United Nations' prestige. And if NATO dares to carry out say operations whatever that go beyond the purposes for which NATO was set up, this will do serious damage to the world order. The Russian Prime Minister has emphasized that it is necessary to stop immediately all the military operations against Yugoslavia. It is necessary to reverse the situation, giving preference to the political settlement, he said.
    According to the Russian Prime Minister, a way out of the current situation would be a return to those good times that existed before the cold war. We, Yevgeny Primakov said further, do not intend to sever economic relations with the other countries. Russia is against any isolationism. But there is a limit to everything. And if NATO continues its military operations, the situation may become irreversible, said the Prime Minister. Russia is advocating certain principles and it intends to defend them, emphasized the Prime Minister. Yevgeny Primakov refused to answer more questions on Russia's further retaliatory steps, in particular, on the possible deployment of the nuclear weapons in Byelorussia, saying that at the moment the most serious task the world is facing are measures to stop the bombardment of Yugoslavia. The development of the situation around Yugoslavia will predetermine the turn of events for years to come , noted the Russian Prime Minister. 
     
  • The Russian Defence Minister Igor Sergeyev has said that, according to the Defence Ministry information, NATO is planning a land operation in Yugoslavia. The Russian News agency ITAR-TASS reports that, according to the Defence Minister, some 22,000 NATO servicemen could be sent to Yugoslavia from Macedonia. Igor Sergeyev has stressed that the Yugoslav Army is prepared to repulse aggression and we, in Russia, have no doubts that this will be proper resistance. The Defence Minister also pointed out that the Russian Defence Ministry had proposals for withdrawing from the regime of sanctions against Yugoslavia and also for changing the format of relations in the Russia-NATO joint Council. But he stressed that it was for President Yeltsin to take decisions to this end.


    •  

  • At least 10 civilians died and more than 60 were injure in the NATO missile and bomb attacks on Yugoslavia last night. This has come in a telephone interview with the American CNN TV company by Yugoslavia's Information Minister Goran Matic.


    •  

  • NATO's air strikes at targets in Yugoslavia have destroyed a winter resort centre on Mt. Kapaonik. According to a report by the RIA-Novosti news agency, this has come in a statement at a news conference in Moscow by the Serbian Minister for Tourism Slobodan Cerovic. According to him, so far there've been no reports about casualties. Two days before the bombings got underway, Cerovic says, almost all tourists left Serbia.


    •  

  • According to news agencies several dozen combat aircraft left NATO military base in Italy earlier today. But the military have so far refused specify if the news is related to another stage in the military operations against Yugoslavia. According to eye-witnesses, military trucks brought missiles and bombs to the hangars with warplanes at the Aviano base.


    •  

  • All airports in Yugoslavia are closed because of the threat of NASO air raids. Serbia's Education Ministry has cancelled all classes at schools and colleges as of March 24th, to April 2d.


    •  

  • America is making a serious blunder by meddling in a war where it has vital interests. This has come in a statement in an exclusive interview with the Voice of Russia radio station by the Yugoslav ambassador to Moscow Borislav Milosevic. The ambassador feels that this act of aggression has trampled underfoot international order as formed after the Second World War. Borislav Milosevic has stressed the United States and NATO have been acting by way of sidestepping the United Nations. And this, he said, brought the entire system of international relations under threat. Borislav Milosevic confirmed that the Yugoslav antiaircraft defences managed to down NATO aircraft and cruise missiles. But Yugoslavia also came to suffer great damage. She most grievous thing is that there are major civilian casualties. Milosevic did not rule retaliation strikes at NATO troop concentrations in Macedonia. According to the ambassador, this act of aggression by NATO crosses out Russia's commitment to observe the ban on the deliveries of the latest armaments to Yugoslavia.


    •  

  • According to the North Atlantic alliance, last night it fired almost 100 cruise missiles at military targets in Yugoslavia. But so far NAT0 has kept itself from giving any estimations of the operation. Yet the alliance points out that from the military point of view the operation has proved less efficient than expected and resulted in civilian casualties. This has been confirmed to the ITAR-TASS news agency in Moscow by high-ranking sources in the Russian Defence Ministry, who claim that up to 300 warplanes were put into action. According to the Yugoslav side, the Yugoslav antiaircraft defence have shot down up to 15 cruise missiles and two warplanes.


    •  

  • Ukraine's Foreign Ministry has issued a statement that was reported by the Russian news agency RIA-Novosti earlier on Thursday to say that Ukraine finds it unacceptable to use military force against sovereign Yugoslavia without a United Nations Security Council authorisation. The statement stresses that Kiev urges the international community to make more efforts to resolve the conflict by political means. All of Ukraine's left-wing and many centrist parties and movements have sharply denounced NATO's air raids against Yugoslavia. On Thursday all anti-NATO forces in the republic picketed the American embassy in Kiev. 

  • Nearly forty sites in Yugoslavia have been destroyed or damaged by NATO airstrikes. The General Staff of the Yugoslav army says five air force bases, five barracks, communications centres and military warehouses were attacked. The Yugoslav charge d' affairs in the United States – Neboja Vujovic - has said the first wave of bombings has taken a toll in human life. A German warplane and three Tomahawk cruise missiles were shot down during the attacks. Military sources in Moscow have confirmed this to the ITAR-TASS news agency. Nearly 300 aircraft were engaged and around 70 Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched in the NATO attacks last night. In spite of the hopes of the government of Montenegro- a republic of Yugoslavia, it territory also came under attack. The President of Montenegro- Milo Djukanovic- has called on the international community to prevent new NATO airstrikes against Serbia and Montenegro. At the same time he demanded that the Yugoslav President, Slobodan Milosevic, make changes to the political course in view of the threat to the existence of the state.


    •  

  • Yugoslav air defenñe systems have suffered no damage and remain combat ready. The authorities have been doing all they can to defend the country. According to a report of the Yugoslav army headquarters circulated in the early hours of Thursday morning there are a great number of volunteers applying to join the army to defend their Motherland.


    •  

  • The Russian President- Boris Yeltsin- has expressed Russia's deep indignation at the NATO military action against Yugoslavia and said Russia regards it as aggression against a sovereign state in violation of all standards of international law. In view of that Moscow is reconsidering relations with NATO. In a statement on Wednesday night President Yeltsin stressed that only the United Nations Security Council had the right to make a decision on which measures should be taken to maintain international peace. On the President's order the Russian representative to NATO has been recalled to Moscow and Russia's participation in the joint programme with NATO and the Partnership for Peace programme has been suspended, President Yeltsin said that he had made an appeal to President Clinton and leaders of other NATO countries to immediately stop the adventures military action, threatening the lives of civilians, and capable of exploding the situation in the Balkans region.


    •  

  • An emergency session of the UN Security Council has been held in the United Nations headquarters in New York. It was convened following Russia's demand to concentrate on NATO's aggression against Yugoslavia. News agencies have reported that no decisions have been taken. Russia and China accused the NATO countries of a flagrant violation of international law and demanded that the illegal military operation against a sovereign state be stopped at once. The UN Secretary General Kofi Annan expressed deep regret about the turn of developments in Kosovo which resulted in a bloodshed. Speaking at the UN headquarters in New York on Wednesday night, Mr Annan underscored that the United Nations bore the bulk of responsibility for international peace and security. Therefore, the UN Secretary General said, the UN Security Council should be involved in taking any decision on the use of force.


    •  

  • In a televised address to the nation US president Bill Clinton tried to justify air strikes against Yugoslavia. He argued the military operation would help avoid a greater war. President Clinton has confirmed that he does not intend to send groud troops to Kosovo on a military mission. He underscored that despite all differences Russia remained the United States' constructive partner in the efforts to ensure peace.


    •  

  • The American Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, has threatened the Yugoslav President- Slobodan Milosevic with more airstrikes if he fails to accept the West's conditions for resolving the Kosovo crisis. She made the statement in an interview to the PBS television company on Wednesday. Earlier, a Pentagon spokesman said NATO would continue airstrikes against Yugoslavia for at least 48 hours.


    •  

  • In Moscow, the Defense ministers of the CIS are meeting in session today to discuss the situation in the wake of NATO air strikes on Yugoslavia. According to ITAR-TASS news agency, the ministers will also concentrate on further military integration in the light of the recent events and on joint combat training.


    •  

  • The International Center of Action organisation is holding rallies in the largest cities of the United States. The key-note of the rallies is "No—to the bombardment of Yugoslavia”. The coordinator of the action Henry Nero has told an ITAR-TASS correspondent that on Wednesday rallies of protest took place in New York, Washington, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco and some other cities. The statement of the organisation says that American servicemen are again sent to kill people in distant lands with risk to their lives.
     
  • Belarussia doesn't rule out tactical nuclear weapons being returned to its territory. Speaking on national television on Wednesday night the country's Deputy Security Council Secretary Viktor Nevelsky said, the government had worked out a complex of measures in connection with the aggravation of the situation in Yugoslavia.
     
  • March 24

 
 


We would like to know your opinion on the problems
highlighted by  the Voice of Russia commentators. 

Copyright © 1999 The Voice of Russia