BELGRADE, March 25. /TASS/. NATO's aggressive policy, including its bombing of Yugoslavia, was aimed at subjugating Serbia, but the Serbs stood firm, Russian Ambassador Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko said on the sidelines of a conference looking into NATO's aggression against Yugoslavia and its long-term consequences.

"It is obvious that the talk about dominance in the Balkans is impossible without Serbia, without influencing Serbia, and in fact without subjugating Serbia. This is the message that was being pushed through, that is - the task was set to subjugate Serbia. I am not talking about the perpetrators, there were many of them then and there are many of them now under different labels," Botsan-Kharchenko told the conference at the Russian Center for Science and Culture in the Serbian capital city.

The Russian diplomat stressed that all attempts to bring the Serbs to their knees failed. "In the case of Serbia, attempts to stir the internal situation were also futile," the ambassador emphasized.

The head of the Russian Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States, Compatriots Living Abroad and International Humanitarian Cooperation (Rossotrudnichestvo), Yevgeny Primakov, also addressed the conference, saying that NATO's aggression against Yugoslavia demonstrated the West's disregard for the rules of international law. "International law as such was destroyed 25 years ago," Primakov noted.

The head of Rossotrudnichestvo specifically emphasized that the Western world is furious over the loss of its power "because the global majority feels more confident, more sovereign and stronger." "It was said here back then - they have taken on us Serbs, and then they will come after you, having given it a try here, they will then go after Russia," Primakov said.

"Russia, seeing what happened in Serbia, will definitely won’t be able to forgive or forget, as it turns on the news every day, standing up for a minute of silence for our fallen [servicemen]," Primakov stressed.

Bombing of Yugoslavia

On March 24, 1999, NATO started its military operation against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The alliance said the main goal was ‘to prevent genocide of the Albanian population in the republic’. According to NATO statistics, the allied aircraft carried out 38,000 sorties during the 78 days of operation.

According to military experts, NATO launched 3,000 cruise missiles, dropped about 80,000 tons of bombs, including with cluster and depleted uranium payload. According to Serbian statistics, between 3,500 and 4,000 people were killed, with about 12,500 injured, two thirds of those being civilians. According to Serbian specialists, 15 tons of depleted uranium were dropped on Serbian territory during the three months of the operation. After that, the country was tops in Europe in cancer cases; during the first 10 years after the bombings, about 30,000 people got cancer, and 10,000 to 18,000 died. The material damage stands at up to $100 billion.