DISINFO: Around 2,000 people were killed in NATO’s bombings in [former] Yugoslavia
SUMMARY
The United States should apologise for the bombings of Yugoslavia in 1999 and pay compensation to the victims of NATO’s armies. […] Serbians will never forget those events, that claimed the lives of around 2,000 people.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation about the number of civilian casualties of NATO bombing and war in former Yugoslavia. In Serbia (excluding Kosovo) and Montenegro, 275 persons lost their lives in the NATO bombings: 180 civilians, 90 members of the Yugoslav Armed Forces and five members of the Ministry of Interior of Serbia. In Kosovo, 484 people were killed: 267 civilians (209 Albanian and 58 non-Albanian), 171 members of the YA, 20 members of the Serbian MUP and 26 members of the KLA (19 of whom died in the NATO bombing of the Dubrava prison, near Istok). The primary purpose of the campaign was to end violence and repression and force Milosevic to withdraw his military, police and para-military forces from Kosovo. (See NATO statement from 1999.) In 1999, the NATO operation for Kosovo followed over a year of intense efforts by the UN and the Contact Group, of which Russia was a member, to bring about a peaceful solution. The UN Security Council on several occasions named the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and the mounting number of refugees driven from their homes as a threat to international peace and security. NATO's Operation Allied Force was launched to prevent the large-scale and sustained violations of human rights and the killing of civilians. Read more about disinformation about the war in former Yugoslavia here and here.