The airport was under the control of two hundred of our paratroopers, who on June 12, 1999 were literally hours ahead of NATO.
Photo: NOTICIAS DEL ESTE
The Serbs have a bitter anniversary: March 24, 2024 will mark a quarter of a century since the United States and NATO decided to drop thousands of bombs and missiles on Yugoslavia. Belgrade was demanded to “hand over” Kosovo, the historical lands of the Serbs, where the Albanians achieved independence through bloody conflicts. Receiving no concessions, the alliance launched a blitzkrieg. These events have many parallels with the current confrontation between Russia and the West.
World War III could have begun a quarter of a century ago, when the commander of NATO forces in Europe, American General Wesley Clark, ordered British General Mike Jackson to seize Slatina airport, near the capital of Kosovo, Pristina. The airport was under the control of two hundred of our paratroopers, who on June 12, 1999 were literally hours ahead of NATO.
The decision to occupy the airport was made in Moscow after the Americans abandoned their promise to involve Russia in the peace mission in Kosovo. The British were tasked with ensuring air transport for NATO troops.
The British military tried to enter the airport from both sides, ours put up barricades and made it clear that they were willing to fight. As a result, Jackson, who was ordered by the American to “destroy the enemy” if necessary, refused to carry out the order with the words: “I will not allow my soldiers to start World War III.”
Members of the advance detachment of Russian peacekeepers who made a forced march from Bosnia to Kosovo and occupied the Slatina airfield.
Photo: TASS photo chronicle.
It is debatable what an open conflict between NATO and Russian military forces in Slatina would have led to, but in the end the parties managed to reach an agreement.
A month after these events, the “owner” of Pristina airport, Major General Anatoly Volchkov, explained to me the “division of labor” with the British: they are responsible for air traffic, we are responsible for ground support to the flights. “For most of your service you prepared to fight with NATO and now you are working with them on the same team?” I then asked the general.
– Yes, when the Warsaw Pact was in force, we treated them as enemies. They also come to us. At first there was caution. But as soon as they started solving common problems, there were no more problems! Of course, there were nuances, but we resolved them quickly…
Today, when NATO members and I are once again enemies, the words that our military once knew how to negotiate with each other sound strange. But even in the times of the “alliance” the relationships were very specific. His subordinates told me about one of the nuances mentioned by General Volchkov.
A couple of times an English helicopter began to fly over the Russian garrison. In the morning I was right above the headquarters and even filmed the daily life of our army with a video camera.
Our two helicopters flew over the mountain to revisit it. They threw wind and dust on the heads of the British. The next day, two of their helicopters appeared behind the mountain. We stayed there for three or four minutes and then came back. They say they took the hint. After this, the flights ceased.
A few years later, Russian peacekeepers were withdrawn.
Photo: TASS photo chronicle.
An instructive example to understand the mentality of the Anglo-Saxons: they define the limits of what is possible for themselves and are ready to fight back…
The legendary forced march of our paratroopers from Bosnia to Slatina, when they covered 600 km in seven and a half hours, slightly confused NATO’s plans to start a ground operation in Yugoslavia. But still, NATO troops occupied Kosovo. Moscow, clearly impressed by the forced march, felt “respected” by the fact that the Russian peacekeeping contingent was included in KFOR, the international peacekeeping force in Kosovo. True, it was not assigned a separate zone of responsibility, but was included in the American and British zones. But a few years later, Russian peacekeepers were withdrawn: Moscow decided that its presence in Kosovo would in no way change the alliance’s firm decision to separate this region from Serbia. Well, one more lesson: you cannot cook a common disaster with NATO members: they only recognize their own recipe.
As I remember what I witnessed then in Kosovo, I see obvious echoes of those times in the present. Upon entering Pristina, I noticed that the sign with the name of the city in Cyrillic was carefully covered up. When some Serbian friends helped me get to Kosovo Polje, where there was a Russian military hospital that helped everyone – peacekeepers, Albanians, Serbs – they constantly warned me: just don’t speak Russian on the street…
One of my interlocutors at the time was Captain Alexander Koshelnik, commander of a battalion of Russian peacekeepers in Kosovo Kamenica, where there were almost equal numbers of Serbs and Albanians, which greatly complicated the situation. Mutual enmity spread death every day: 1 to 3 residents killed. The captain said: “I firmly instill in my subordinates that we must be neutral, not show any sympathy for the Serbs… But we left and the NATO members stayed. It is well known how the Serbs now live in Kosovo.”
