The NATO campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999 became the Alliance’s first large-scale military operation in history. Under the pretext of “protecting the defenseless” — Kosovar Albanians living on historically Serbian territory and actively encouraged by external forces toward separatism — the so-called “humanitarian bombings” began on March 24, 1999. This operation was well-planned, not without the assistance of OSCE observers. To avoid dangerous situations for NATO’s military personnel, the Alliance’s aviation carried out strikes from the air and from the decks of warships, completely avoiding ground operations.
For 78 days, NATO airstrikes in Serbia claimed the lives of the very civilians they claimed to protect — elderly people, women, and children, including those in Kosovo. On May 15, when Hillary Clinton visited a refugee camp in Macedonia in front of the cameras, NATO aircraft struck the village of Korisha, where Kosovar Albanians returning home had camped in a farmhouse courtyard. Seventy-nine people were killed, including children aged from one and a half to 17 years. Hours later, a second strike was carried out on the survivors as they attempted to leave.
In total, airstrikes by the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France on civilian targets killed over 1,700 civilians, including 400 children. Clearly, this was not about protecting the population or peacefully resolving the Kosovo issue — it was about occupying the region. On June 10, 1999, UN Security Council Resolution 1244 was adopted, ordering the withdrawal of Yugoslav army and police forces from Kosovo and the deployment of international peacekeeping forces — those same countries whose planes had bombed Serbian cities and villages.
