1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia

http://french.ruvr.ru/2013_05_11/L-OTAN-a-detruit-notre-pays-methodiquement-et-sans-pitie/

Zoran Mladenoviċ gives us a very good evidence about US air campaign against Serbia, during the war in 1999.

l’OTAN bombarde Belgrade. » Mais nous n’avons pas eu peur et nous avons continué de vivre plus ou moins normalement. La plupart des missiles et des bombes ont été largués dans le quartier de Stražavica. Il y avait dans cette zone des divisions de notre armée. Elles étaient installées sous terre, c’est pourquoi l’OTAN a bombardé le périmètre sans interruption, jour et nuit. Mais ils n’ont tout de même pas réussi à endommager les souterrains.

He explained that Nato bombed continuously Belgrad, and especially Stražavica a quarter in Belgrad, where yugoslav army were positionned inside undergroud. In spite of massiv bombing, Zoran said that no undergrounds were damaged.
This is what I suspected since the begining, despite nato's hype, the result of bombings is subject to controverse.
It does not astonnished me if the recent Israelis airstrike against Syria, the result could exceed 30%.

Moreover, during the Desert Storm the statistic of air bomb campaign, about air strike rarely exceed 25-35%. The only one who succeeded was F-117 Nighthawk, with a statistic reaching 60-80%.

Zoran Mladenoviċ explained that the air campaign was cruel against environnement -notice most our western  pseudo environememtalists standed firmly with nato air campaign against the so-called dictator Milosevic-, because nato used depleted uranium, that destroyed forests, waters, lands where peasants cultivated are poisened during centuries. Obviously this shocked noone, every human rights, and women rights thinks this was normal. Every thing could be justified while the hardware is used against the so-called Milosevic dictator. Whatever civilians dead or not.

Its no surprise at all.

The effort required to actually destroy such hardened facilities with "conventional" munitions is very high. This means that whilst in theory the US COULD destroy individual bunkers with a concerted effort, they would be incapable of putting out of action the military of even a relatively small state like Serbia USING CONVENTIONAL MUNITIONS ALONE.

That is obviously a result of the "cold war" ... when defensive measures were built up for a Nuclear Conflict, whilst "offensive" measures against them were also planned to be "Nuclear"... Thus in a limited war, where the nuclear option is off-limits, the weakness of conventional weapons against such opponents becomes clear.

However the US has been content to "button up" an opponent to achieve tactical victory...

From hellenic TV reports

check this video out



where is that village? They pounded it like Kobani

KiloGolf wrote:check this video out



where is that village? They pounded it like Kobani

Its village called Planeja (sounds abit Greek), attack on it was part of what we here call "Operation Arrow". While it looks devastating, effects of the bombardment were quite limited, core of the units stationed there was intact.







Few shots after strikes



Another video of same area

KiloGolf wrote:Even us, despite declining use of airbases for strikes and border (pre-Rambouillet), our government (member of EU and NATO) did very little to help you. Mainly humanitarian stuff and media-wise the Serbian POV was/is public opinion (daily footage directly from RTS, journos went up there, etc). But that Greek government 96-00 was the same that screwed the country over financially, sold the eurozone myth, wasted a lot of money, handled aggressiveness of Turkey horribly etc.

So tell those people that Hellas' membership in EU/NATO failed to help you as well.
Also I distinctively remember CNN airing a map with both Turkey and us "on fire" and the story was that if Serbia wins the war, trouble will go south...

PS. I always felt Milosevic sold everything out in Rambouillet... am I wrong? The media here conveyed this image of a strongman that will never yield.
PS2. we can continue if you like on the 1999 war thread.
PS3. just realized tanjug press agency is shut. wtf Shocked

Well except few random volonteurs and some "Dogs of War" from Greece there was no real help. Except few rumons about some Greek officer leaking info to our General Staff, but that is questionable.

Well Milosević did best he could... not sure what else he could have done... one of his mistakes tho was leaving Krajina in 1995. to fall, and that is reason why many Serbs dont like him.

Yes Tanjug does not exist anymore.... but dont worry, EU will build for us new and better news agency, older too

KiloGolf wrote:check this video out



where is that village? They pounded it like Kobani

That village is the shame of Albanian politics, and it will hound us forever.

It's right on the North Eastern Albanian/Ex-FRY border. It's called Planeja. Fun fact I crossed further North in 1997 to get out of ALbania during the troubles. Many of the people on the border post there that would get killed by NATO actually saved my life. It's f***** sad. In Albania we have a saying, "I with bread and you with stone". Well basically the Albanian Government acted like that.
It's separated by the White Drin River, that coes in perpendicular to the border. which forms a natural barrier. The NATO was bombing actually in front of the UCK people that were crossing the border. In fact it is the same thing that NATO accuses Russia of doing in Ukraine. It's sad.

They would assemble groups in Morinë with NATO planners and send them through the border on a slant route to have cover through the foliage. Most of those whores got spotted which forced NATO to get going and hit the village. Now the press in Albania has started pushing out the "real" stories of the "UCK". The "guys" were massively criminals that were gathered to "defend" the motherland, they'd be formed by NATO troops under PELICAN, US advisors would for the core, 'about 3 teams of 60 people', than a wider training program was done by the Germans about 500 guys, and the rest was taken care by the Albanian Gov under US embassy patronage.

many didn't need much "training", they were patented criminals and "resistants". UNfortunately a small contingent of "moderate" beheaders also joined in. A couple of Jordanians, Saudis and Bosnians.

If this was a genuine "liberation" movement, although I have the greatest respect for Serbia, so be it. It happens. But this was in great part a fabricated mercenary army, formed over the rubble of the Albanian state, armed with weapons plundered in Albanian stocks and breeding on Albanian blood.

There's nothing but Albanian sorrow that created this. And somehow many Albanians consider this a victory. LOL.

"Operation Arrow" documentary, you have titles too just need to activate them.

Yeah well Militarov posted a whole Documentary about it. I won't say it's 100% truth, but it's far more right than whatever NATO crap was told about this situation.

Thanks to the both of you. I am convinced that this war had nothing to do with the interests of Albanians in Serbia, testament to that is that Albania did not get the territory. This was/is a recipe for disaster and I fear leaves the door wide open for future conflict. As both of you know, I am not at all a fan of what Tito's Yugoslavia did on the FYROM issue nor did I ever agree with communists. But as a teenager, even from TV watching that war (here media showed a lot of ugly stuff...) was the epitome of evil. And we know who pushed things in that direction. I have utmost respect for what Yugoslavia stood for and how it brought together different countries and made a strong industrially nation competing with N. and W. Europe. For us it was a big, northern respected neighbor and gateway to central, western and northern Europe.

I don't know if today's post Yugo nations (probably bar Slovenia) have much to be proud about or whether what they've constructed as success-story (Croatia for Croats, Kosovo for Albanians, moderates in Bosnia, etc.).

Anyway, sorry for much talking. PapaDragon's video from the war brought me a lot of memories.

KoTeMoRe wrote:Yeah well Militarov posted a whole Documentary about it. I won't say it's 100% truth, but it's far more right than whatever NATO crap was told about this situation.

Some Frames are of course a bit out of place in the documentary. I can no longer hear this shit with the official data on the number of dead soldiers. People who were there right at the front, have quite different numbers in the head.
Even those who personally knows "Mr. Albert", must smile from his appearance here...some other Russian brothers would have been suitable for this purpose.

Victors write the history.

Militarov wrote:

Victors write the history.

If we're talking about America, then yes those people got their nice foothold. If you're talking about Albanians (in Albania), then nope, we actually were the second losers of this. We opened the Pandora box, in the SOuth, at any moment we have about 100K people ready to go back to Greece (just because) what do you think will happen if the Greeks decide to pull a Kosovo on us? We'll be fucked. And no NATO BS is going to save us. Half my native town is made up with minority Greeks. What do you think they felt when Northern Albanians were chanting Ethnic Albania? We had shivers that much it was bad. Family members had to pay visit around each other so no hothead BS would happen. It's a very sensitive matter around here, especially since most of the families, from both sides have immigrants in Greece. Europeans (normal ones) don't understand how edgy this this is. How hard it has been to get back in order after those years.
Kosovars (Albanophones) are mostly dismayed about their "state". It's actually worse than it was before. There's no law, there's no order, there's no logic in Kosovo. The only thing that has changed is that there's no open war any more within the Kosovar community.


And then well there's you, basically the Last European Leprosy patient of Europe. While Belgrade should have been a regional center to coordinate and get together the Balkans. Instead it (the war) injected even more hatred among people and ultimately led to the Montenegrin secession.

KoTeMoRe wrote:

Militarov wrote:

Victors write the history.

If we're talking about America, then yes those people got their nice foothold. If you're talking about Albanians (in Albania), then nope, we actually were the second losers of this. We opened the Pandora box, in the SOuth, at any moment we have about 100K people ready to go back to Greece (just because) what do you think will happen if the Greeks decide to pull a Kosovo on us? We'll be fucked. And no NATO BS is going to save us. Half my native town is made up with minority Greeks. What do you think they felt when Northern Albanians were chanting Ethnic Albania? We had shivers that much it was bad. Family members had to pay visit around each other so no hothead BS would happen. It's a very sensitive matter around here, especially since most of the families, from both sides have immigrants in Greece. Europeans (normal ones) don't understand how edgy this this is. How hard it has been to get back in order after those years.
Kosovars (Albanophones) are mostly dismayed about their "state". It's actually worse than it was before. There's no law, there's no order, there's no logic in Kosovo. The only thing that has changed is that there's no open war any more within the Kosovar community.


And then well there's you, basically the Last European Leprosy patient of Europe. While Belgrade should have been a regional center to coordinate and get together the Balkans. Instead it (the war) injected even more hatred among people and ultimately led to the Montenegrin secession.

Pre 1999. Kosovo-Yugoslavia was state with order and law in place. Occasional small bribes (to policeman to not write you a ticket for speeding and similar) and stuff of that sort would happen but where they do not. Capital Belgrade had few thugs that now they call "mafia", just couple dozen of thugs that were killing eachother in clubs over a truck full of gasoline or similar. Other than that... it was like that series "law and order". Now when i see what "independend state of Kosovo" has become i actually have smile on my face. Noone was hungry on Kosovo for 70 years, noone was lacking medicines, noone was traficking cocaine and lived long enough to brag about it.

You have "Kosovars" now traveling though my city in hundreds trying to reach Hungary, Austria, Germany begging here on the way for shelter and money and most common sentence you can hear is "Ja nesam UČK". Meanwhile in 1999. our Police on patrols was soaked by boiling oil or water by women from the terraces. But sure... they are not UCK now.

Militarov wrote:

KoTeMoRe wrote:

Militarov wrote:

Victors write the history.

If we're talking about America, then yes those people got their nice foothold. If you're talking about Albanians (in Albania), then nope, we actually were the second losers of this. We opened the Pandora box, in the SOuth, at any moment we have about 100K people ready to go back to Greece (just because) what do you think will happen if the Greeks decide to pull a Kosovo on us? We'll be fucked. And no NATO BS is going to save us. Half my native town is made up with minority Greeks. What do you think they felt when Northern Albanians were chanting Ethnic Albania? We had shivers that much it was bad. Family members had to pay visit around each other so no hothead BS would happen. It's a very sensitive matter around here, especially since most of the families, from both sides have immigrants in Greece. Europeans (normal ones) don't understand how edgy this this is. How hard it has been to get back in order after those years.
Kosovars (Albanophones) are mostly dismayed about their "state". It's actually worse than it was before. There's no law, there's no order, there's no logic in Kosovo. The only thing that has changed is that there's no open war any more within the Kosovar community.


And then well there's you, basically the Last European Leprosy patient of Europe. While Belgrade should have been a regional center to coordinate and get together the Balkans. Instead it (the war) injected even more hatred among people and ultimately led to the Montenegrin secession.

Pre 1999. Kosovo-Yugoslavia was state with order and law in place. Occasional small bribes (to policeman to not write you a ticket for speeding and similar) and stuff of that sort would happen but where they do not. Capital Belgrade had few thugs that now they call "mafia", just couple dozen of thugs that were killing eachother in clubs over a truck full of gasoline or similar. Other than that... it was like that series "law and order". Now when i see what "independend state of Kosovo" has become i actually have smile on my face. Noone was hungry on Kosovo for 70 years, noone was lacking medicines, noone was traficking cocaine and lived long enough to brag about it.

You have "Kosovars" now traveling though my city in hundreds trying to reach Hungary, Austria, Germany begging here on the way for shelter and money and most common sentence you can hear is "Ja nesam UČK". Meanwhile in 1999. our Police on patrols was soaked by boiling oil or water by women from the terraces. But sure... they are not UCK now.

What can I say, the fewer the merrier for everyone. It's a whole land of degenerates and the few that are normal, have either gotten out or become rich.
Ohh well we beat Oddjob Bosnacis for the most debiloid people in the Balkans. Yay Albania and Kosovostan.

This conflict has always been confusing to me.

I remember seeing Sarajevo bombed (on television).

Cowboy's daughter wrote:This conflict has always been confusing to me.

I remember seeing Sarajevo bombed (on television).

Sarajevo was featured in earlier war 1991-1995. during breakdown of Yugoslavia. And it was never really bombed by airforce at least not in any significant cappacity, artillery was mainly used.

Militarov wrote:

Cowboy's daughter wrote:This conflict has always been confusing to me.

I remember seeing Sarajevo bombed (on television).

Sarajevo was featured in earlier war 1991-1995. during breakdown of Yugoslavia. And it was never really bombed by airforce at least not in any significant cappacity, artillery was mainly used.

Thank you for your clarification.

Calm before the storm, literally

Militarov wrote:

KiloGolf wrote:Even us, despite declining use of airbases for strikes and border (pre-Rambouillet), our government (member of EU and NATO) did very little to help you. Mainly humanitarian stuff and media-wise the Serbian POV was/is public opinion (daily footage directly from RTS, journos went up there, etc). But that Greek government 96-00 was the same that screwed the country over financially, sold the eurozone myth, wasted a lot of money, handled aggressiveness of Turkey horribly etc.

So tell those people that Hellas' membership in EU/NATO failed to help you as well.
Also I distinctively remember CNN airing a map with both Turkey and us "on fire" and the story was that if Serbia wins the war, trouble will go south...

PS. I always felt Milosevic sold everything out in Rambouillet... am I wrong? The media here conveyed this image of a strongman that will never yield.
PS2. we can continue if you like on the 1999 war thread.
PS3. just realized tanjug press agency is shut. wtf Shocked

Well except few random volonteurs and some "Dogs of War" from Greece there was no real help. Except few rumons about some Greek officer leaking info to our General Staff, but that is questionable.

Well Milosević did best he could... not sure what else he could have done... one of his mistakes tho was leaving Krajina in 1995. to fall, and that is reason why many Serbs dont like him.

Yes Tanjug does not exist anymore.... but dont worry, EU will build for us new and better news agency, older too

Have read in a Polish newspaper that some Polish volunteers went to the Yugoslav embassy in Warsaw in 1999 offering their help, but that they were turned away because "their services were not needed."

That was allegedly said by the contemporary Yugoslav ambassador to Poland.


Also read that the NATO leak(s) was/were made by some Czech(s).


There is practically nothing Milosevic could have done about Krajina; both it and Yugoslavia were being sanctioned and embargoed into defeat. Also, Krajina had a very long border and very small population; it was an easy target for a Blitzkrieg type of an invasion.

Odin of Ossetia wrote:

Militarov wrote:

KiloGolf wrote:Even us, despite declining use of airbases for strikes and border (pre-Rambouillet), our government (member of EU and NATO) did very little to help you. Mainly humanitarian stuff and media-wise the Serbian POV was/is public opinion (daily footage directly from RTS, journos went up there, etc). But that Greek government 96-00 was the same that screwed the country over financially, sold the eurozone myth, wasted a lot of money, handled aggressiveness of Turkey horribly etc.

So tell those people that Hellas' membership in EU/NATO failed to help you as well.
Also I distinctively remember CNN airing a map with both Turkey and us "on fire" and the story was that if Serbia wins the war, trouble will go south...

PS. I always felt Milosevic sold everything out in Rambouillet... am I wrong? The media here conveyed this image of a strongman that will never yield.
PS2. we can continue if you like on the 1999 war thread.
PS3. just realized tanjug press agency is shut. wtf Shocked

Well except few random volonteurs and some "Dogs of War" from Greece there was no real help. Except few rumons about some Greek officer leaking info to our General Staff, but that is questionable.

Well Milosević did best he could... not sure what else he could have done... one of his mistakes tho was leaving Krajina in 1995. to fall, and that is reason why many Serbs dont like him.

Yes Tanjug does not exist anymore.... but dont worry, EU will build for us new and better news agency, older too

Have read in a Polish newspaper that some Polish volunteers went to the Yugoslav embassy in Warsaw in 1999 offering their help, but that they were turned away because "their services were not needed."

That was allegedly said by the contemporary Yugoslav ambassador to Poland.


Also read that the NATO leak(s) was/were made by some Czech(s).


There is practically nothing Milosevic could have done about Krajina; both it and Yugoslavia were being sanctioned and embargoed into defeat. Also, Krajina had a very long border and very small population; it was an easy target for a Blitzkrieg type of an invasion.

Ah yes, there were also some Russians, volonteurs, some even died or got wounded though war. One of them was even now legendary Anatoly Lebed future commander of 45th Guards Spetsnaz Regiment.



Well, it wouldnt be easy however Serbia and JNA still had huge potential, Krajina at one point operated only two batteries of ZiS 3 guns so... figure their firepower.

Cowboy's daughter wrote:This conflict has always been confusing to me.

I remember seeing Sarajevo bombed (on television).

I remember the UK news coming out with the Serbia bad stuff ... the reporting made no sense .. you had the Croats with their chequer board flags the Croatian Nazis Utasha or Ustasche flew during WW2 ... I think this was the main factor for Serbs losing their temper ... the croats were guilty on a massive scale in the ethnic cleansing of Orthodox Serbs .... the Croats wanted a Catholic superstate and they received the blessing of the pope in cleansing the Orthodox Serbs from Croatia ... this is why the war in Croatia and Bosnia was so bloody because the Slovenia breakaway was relatively peaceful with only minor incidents .... i'm sure Militarov will correct me if I am wrong

Godric wrote:

Cowboy's daughter wrote:This conflict has always been confusing to me.

I remember seeing Sarajevo bombed (on television).

I remember the UK news coming out with the Serbia bad stuff ... the reporting made no sense .. you had the Croats with their chequer board flags the Croatian Nazis Utasha or Ustasche flew during WW2 ... I think this was the main factor for Serbs losing their temper ... the croats were guilty on a massive scale in the ethnic cleansing of Orthodox Serbs .... the Croats wanted a Catholic superstate and they received the blessing of the pope in cleansing the Orthodox Serbs from Croatia ... this is why the war in Croatia and Bosnia was so bloody because the Slovenia breakaway was relatively peaceful with only minor incidents .... i'm sure Militarov will correct me if I am wrong

Well, i can tell you alot about that topic as i felt quite of it first hand. My village was 70% Serbian 30% Croatian in 1941. in 1945. it was 30% Serbian and 70% Croatian... i dont need to explain you why. 11 males from my house aged 15-55 were taken, throats sliced and then thrown into natural pit, together with 1340 other Serbs from that community. Now...if someone started waving in font of your nose with letter U on Croatian flag, tell me, what would you do?

War in Bosnia and parts of Croatia was more intense due to fact Serbs tried to keep Yugoslavia together, while Croats and majority of Muslims belived how everything will be so much better without "opressive Serbs". They actually genuinely belived how they do not have enough rights in decision making on federal lvl, which from this time distance i can just call retarded. They would even get spots on military academy equal to their % in Yugoslavian population even tho half of them wasnt really...bright enough for anything beside taking care of sheep, hat down to exceptions as there were some highly respected Muslim poets, engineers etc.

War in Slovenia was very short true, however Slovenians did one thing, they killed probably near 100 high ranking JNA officers in their homes hours before their "separation". They sent ppl to their apartments, they would ring and say how they are urgently needed at job or similar, when he opens door to let them in or to join them, they shoot him in font of family, kids, doesnt matter. One of such cases was my fathers cousin, Air force captain first class. He was killed in hallway of his apartment in front of wife and 2 kids with a submachine gun MGV-176 .22 LR he was shot like 40 times. His crime? Serbian officer of Yugoslavian National Army, loyal to his flag and rank.

The interesting thing is that when I talk to westerners or all the ethnic groups actually involved in the conflict except the Serbs... they say the bad guys were the Serbs.

Most of the Serbs I talk to about it say there were no good guys and everybody did very bad things, but that the Serbs tended to get the blame for everything... largely likely because of their link to Russia no doubt.