MOSCOW, June 12 Operation to transfer Russian peacekeepers in Kosovo in June 1999 could have failed due to the position of some representatives of the Russian leadership, said Colonel General Leonid Ivashov, former head of the Main Directorate for International Military Cooperation of the Russian Ministry of Defense.
On the night of June 11-12, 1999, a combined battalion of Russian paratroopers, which was part of the international peacekeeping contingent in Bosnia and Herzegovina, was the first to enter the territory of the Serbian autonomous region of Kosovo and Metohija, occupying a strategically important facility — the Slatina airfield — and for several hours ahead of tank columns of NATO troops. After this, in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution No. 1244, on the basis of a decree of the President of Russia and in accordance with the “Agreed Points of Russian Participation in the KFOR Forces” signed by the Ministers of Defense of the Russian Federation and the United States (June 18, 1999, Helsinki), a decision was made to send military contingent of the Russian Armed Forces in Kosovo.
Former head of the main directorate for international military cooperation of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, Colonel General Leonid Ivashov
«A flare-up broke out in Moscow discussion. It would not be easy to turn the column around. The road is narrow and one-way, there are ravines all around. (Minister of Defense) Igor Sergeev ordered to call (the representative of the Russian Federation to NATO) Viktor Zavarzin (who led the column of Russian troops — editor’s note) I explained to him on his mobile phone: no matter what orders he received, the task was personally set by the Minister of Defense, by decision of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. In Moscow, I said that there was no connection with Zavarzin,” the general reproduced the events.
Chief of the General Staff Anatoly Kvashnin. contacted the convoy via the command and control channel and ordered it to stop. Then, in the next conversation with Zavarzin, Ivashov advised the general to turn off the phone and continue to carry out the assigned task.
Read about what else Ivashov said about those events on the website ria.ru