MOSCOW, November 30 Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova recalled in her Telegram channel about the shelling by NATO forces of Yugoslavia's energy infrastructure in 1999.
Commenting on the statements of the head of European diplomacy Josep Borrell and Secretary General of the North Atlantic Alliance Jens Stoltenberg, she cited an excerpt from a briefing by NATO Press Secretary Jamie Shea dated May 25, 1999 . Then he answered the question why the forces of the alliance are depriving Yugoslavia of electricity and water supply on a huge scale, if, according to the statements of the bloc, NATO «strikes only on military targets.»
“Unfortunately, the command and control systems also depend on electricity. If (ex-Serbian President Slobodan. — Approx. ed.) Milosevic really wants his citizens to have water and electricity, all he has to do is accept the conditions of NATO, and we will stop this campaign. Until he does this, we will continue to attack targets that supply his army with electricity. If this has consequences for the population, these are his (Milosevic's) problems, «NATO representative quotes Zakharov.
At the same time, as follows from Shia's statement, the military bloc was ready to permanently deprive the inhabitants of the republic of electricity and water.
«Water and electricity are being used against the people of Serbia, we have «turned off» them forever or for a long time for the sake of the lives of 1.6 million Kosovars who have been driven from their homes and whose lives have suffered significant damage. Not everyone will like this difference, but for me this difference fundamental,” Zakharova cites the response of the alliance’s press secretary.
In 1999, an armed confrontation between Albanian separatists from the Kosovo Liberation Army, the Serbian army and police led to NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, which at that time consisted of Serbia and Montenegro. The military operation began without the approval of the UN Security Council. As a pretext for launching it, they used the allegations of Western countries that the authorities of the republic carried out ethnic cleansing in the Kosovo autonomy and provoked a humanitarian catastrophe there. Air strikes by the North Atlantic Alliance lasted from March 24 to June 10, 1999 and led to the death of more than 2.5 thousand people, including 87 children, and damage to the amount of one hundred billion dollars.