Yugoslavia Russian paratroopers. General Jackson's Moonwalk

"Lord have mercy! Lord have mercy!" - the words of a Serbian folk song-prayer sounded at a concert in honor of the delegation of Russian paratroopers in the mining town of Ugljevik in the east of the Republika Srpska, in Bosnia and Herzegovina. A group of paratroopers from Russia, led by the former chief of staff of the Airborne Forces, Lieutenant General Nikolai Staskov, arrived here to celebrate the 14th anniversary of the legendary march landing battalion in Kosovo. In June 1999, this news stirred the world - Russian troops captured Slatina Airport, a key facility in Kosovo, right in front of the nose of the NATO avant-garde. The Serbs perked up. The march of the airborne battalion evoked a feeling of pride in the country and the army in many Russians.

After 14 years, this date was hardly noticed in Russia, except for a couple of media reports. They “didn't notice” it in Belgrade either, where today they are increasingly looking towards the West. But in the modest 18,000th Uglevik, where ten years ago the headquarters of the brigade was located Russian peacekeepers, our paratroopers are remembered and loved. “Serbia is alive while Russia lives,” the words from the same song, performed by Serbian girls, became the quintessence of this memory…

The Russian delegation was met by the chairman of the "Serbian-Russian Union" Savo Cvetinovich, in the past one of the leaders of the Serbian police, and now a postal worker. Together with airborne officers he restored peace and order in the long-suffering land of the Republika Srpska. Loyalty to the oath, patriotism and pro-Russian orientation cost him high office and a career in the police. He was too inconvenient for henchmen from international community, "guards" from the IPTF (international police), is too honest, too disposed towards the Russian peacekeepers.
Cvetinovich is one of those who do not change their views depending on the situation. Now such people are in great short supply in Serbia, and in Russia as well. Russian paratroopers for him are the dearest guests in the world.

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The acute phase of the conflict in the Balkans has been extinguished. The wounds are gradually healed, the heroes and traitors of that war, which flared up on the fragments of Yugoslavia and went through the fates of living people, families, friendships and the former unity of peoples, are becoming a thing of the past. Grass overgrown the roads and the skeletons of burned and abandoned houses. Yugoslavia is no more, and, as the Serbs themselves say, there will be no more. The reasons and reasons for the collapse of the country turned out to be much stronger and more effective than those bonds that have been sewing together the SFRY since the time of Tito. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbs, Muslims and Croats were divided into entities, separating themselves in their territories, according to different sides the line of separation between the parties drawn by the international community.

Refugees settled in new houses, moving even the graves of their ancestors to housewarming. Now there are much fewer towns and villages with a mixed population in Bosnia and Herzegovina, although former line Serb villages still alternate with Muslim villages. In the 1990s, when the fighting was going on, on sections of roads being shot through from the dominant heights, local Serbs, fleeing from snipers, installed plywood shields along the roads and hung pieces of fabric and blankets on ropes, blocking their view.

To the south, 600 kilometers southeast of Ugljevik is Kosovo field, a historical place for the Serbs, which in the 90s of the 20th century turned into a pain for the Serbian people. The tragedy of the Serb genocide of the 2000s was superimposed on the defeat in the battle with the Ottomans seven centuries ago.

... Memory inexorably takes us back to those days of the 90s, when foreign military contingents were brought into Bosnia and Herzegovina. The political leadership of the leading world states, destroying, as it seemed to him, " last stronghold Communism in Europe”, with its actions “torn apart” and tore to pieces on religious and national grounds the territory of the former Yugoslavia, initiating one of the bloodiest conflicts of the 20th century. All this, of course, in the name of democracy and justice. The ends justified the means...

The Serbs were left with less and less living space. The Dayton Accords in December 1994 became the legalization of the new reality.
Peacekeeping units Airborne Forces of Russia served at that time in the Republika Srpska, which, according to many of its inhabitants, became a guarantee of the population's security and prevented new clashes. The task is to spread opposing sides, seize, establish a peaceful life. In fact, nearby, side by side, our paratroopers were serving the American military. It was unusual that potential adversaries, who had been preparing to fight each other for many years, carried out a peacekeeping mission as part of one organizational and staff structure of the multinational division "North", representing the interests of their countries in the region.

“We were enemies, but we met each other not on the battlefield, but as peacekeepers,” recalls General Nikolai Staskov. - Unusual condition, given our training. Learned to communicate here peaceful environment. We gradually established interaction, although at first it was not easy.

Ex-Chief of Staff of the Russian Airborne Forces Nikolai Staskov at the location of the headquarters of the Russian peacekeeping brigade in Uglevik, Republika Srpska with a delegation of Russian paratroopers

The division of the American rangers is located at the headquarters of the brigade of the Russian Airborne Forces, officers Russian group interaction in the interests of Russian peacekeepers carried out tasks at the American Eagle base in Tuzla.

The attitude of the population towards the peacekeepers was specific - the Americans, to put it mildly, were not loved here, but they saw the Russians as fraternal protection. The trust of the population in our military, who served at posts, patrolled the area of responsibility, according to Nikolai Staskov, then played leading role in the normalization of the situation. Shots ceased to sound, explosions to thunder, people gradually returned to peaceful life: "The friendship of the Russian and Serbian peoples, which is a constant value, has affected."

The fact that the brigade of Russian paratroopers was firmly settling in the Republika Srpska, having deployed, in addition to the headquarters, units, and posts, also an operational group that independently analyzed information and transmitted it to Russia, did not like the American command, which demanded unconditional obedience. "Partners" constantly complained to Moscow about the initiative commanders of the Russian landing. For example, the Western media accused General Staskov of almost disrupting the Dayton Accords, calling him a "gun without a fuse."

From the history

In January 1996, a separate airborne brigade numbering 1500 people.

On the night of June 11-12, 1999, a battalion of Russian paratroopers made a dashing rush from Bosnia to Kosovo in a few hours, capturing a strategically important object - the Slatina airfield and ahead of tank columns of NATO troops. After that, 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 on June 18, 1999 in Helsinki, it was decided to send a military contingent of the Armed Forces to Kosovo RF numbering 3616 people.

The Russian Airborne Forces on the territory of the former Yugoslavia, together with NATO, participated in two peacekeeping operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Kosovo. In BiH, paratroopers controlled the territory with total area– 1750 km2. The total length of the controlled line of separation of the parties is 75 km. The units were deployed in 3 base areas (2 on the territory of the Republika Srpska - Ugljevik and Priboy, 1 - on the territory of the BiH Federation - Simin-Khan).

Bombs real and psychological

... The time was troubled - there was a preparation of NATO aggression against Yugoslavia, then the Kosovo events followed. In the spring of 1999, NATO bombers lined up in combat echelons to carry out (think about the term!) "humanitarian bombing" of Greater Serbia's infrastructure facilities right above the base area of the Russian brigade. Nothing to the border - less than 30 km.

Once an air carousel spun right in the sky over Ugljevik, when the Yugoslav MiG took unequal fight with two newest American fighters, was shot down and, leaving a plume of smoke, began to leave towards Serbia. The Serbian pilot managed to eject. He, wounded, was picked up locals and by providing medical care, transported across the border with Serbia. And on the ground, search groups of the American contingent scoured for several days, with the task of capturing the downed pilot.

A leaflet for the servicemen of the Armed Forces of the FRY in KOSOVO, distributed by NATO aircraft in March-June 1999. Caption on the illustration: "Thousands of bombs ... obeying the will of the whole world, will continuously rain down on your unit." The signature on the back: "FRY Armed Forces Warning: LEAVE KOSOVO! NATO uses B-52 bombers armed with 225-kilogram MK-82 bombs against units of the FRY Armed Forces in KOSOVO and METOHIA. One B-52 can carry up to 50 such bombs! These aircraft will fly until your atrocities stop and you are driven out of KOSOVO and METOHIA If you want to survive and see your families again, drop your weapons"

At this time, the entire population of Bosnia and Herzegovina, including the Republika Srpska, was subjected to active psychological impact from Western countries. These places have become a kind of testing ground for new information technologies and their further application in other regions of the world. Thousands of American specialists psychological struggle launched the work by creating mass media, connecting local TV channels and radio stations, organizing "talk shows", distributing leaflets, etc. Psychological warfare officers from the Russian brigade resisted this flow, creating a different information background in the Serbian media, and often, as the Americans themselves admit, they won these duels on the air, on screens and in newspapers.

With the intensification of the operation to squeeze the Serbs out of Kosovo, in addition to bombs, rockets and shells, leaflets were raining down on Serbian troops and civilian objects from the air with threats to bomb endlessly. The processing of the consciousness of the military people and the population did not stop for more than a minute. It can be said that in the Balkans, NATO forces won precisely in the information sphere, since the damage inflicted from the air on the Yugoslav army in Kosovo was minimal.
Here, strategy and tactics were worked out in practice, the methodology and methods of conducting information warfare were tested.

The scale of NATO special operations is evidenced by the fact that one day the wind suddenly changed, and one and a half million leaflets dropped on Serbia were carried to the territory of neighboring Hungary. Paper rain fell on the heads of the taken aback Hungarians. It was written on the leaflets: “Thousands of bombs ... obeying the will of the whole world, will continuously rain down on your unit ... Warning of the Armed Forces of the FRY: leave Kosovo! NATO uses B-52 bombers armed with 225-kilogram MK-82 bombs against units of the FRY Armed Forces in Kosovo and Metohija. One B-52 can carry up to 50 of these bombs! …These planes will keep coming until they stop your atrocities and kick you out of Kosovo and Metohija. If you want to survive and see your families again, drop your weapons…”

... But it cannot be said that Yugoslavia was doomed in this confrontation. Yes, headquarters, buildings of military and civilian infrastructure were subjected to methodical strikes in Belgrade, social facilities. Cruise missiles and "smart" bombs hit objects marked with "beacons" placed by American agents. But the Yugoslav army did not suffer the losses expected in Washington and Brussels. Military units Serbs successfully maneuvered, used camouflage and heat traps for NATO missiles. The air defense forces gradually learned to deal with air targets, shooting down the “invisible” F-117 Stealth and a pair of Mirages. The army retained its backbone and combat readiness... But the methodical information-psychological indoctrination of the Serbs bore fruit - official Belgrade accepted the conditions of the international community's ultimatum. The territory of Kosovo, along with the formations of the Albanians, was occupied by the Americans, the British and their allies. Moscow's demands to include Russia in the format of the operation in Kosovo in order to stop the genocide of the Serbian population were ignored. Under these conditions, the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces and headquarters of the Airborne Forces a seemingly adventurous and risky decision was made - an advanced detachment as part of a separate airborne battalion to make a seven hundred-kilometer forced march into the very heart of Kosovo, ahead of NATO units that had begun advancing across Serbian territory, capture the Slatina military airfield and ensure the landing of the main forces of the Russian peacekeeping contingent . It is significant that even President Yeltsin did not know about this plan, who would be informed about the operation after it was completed. Such secrecy justified itself 100% - at least, the pro-Western entourage of the President of Russia was in complete ignorance, not having time to present the situation to him in the light he needed for himself and to disrupt the airborne battalion's attack.

"I dream of the march at night"

It looked like a picture from another life - flowers on the armor, Serbian girls kissing Russian soldiers, stormy jubilation. A battalion of Russian paratroopers took up positions at the Slatina airfield in Kosovo. How did the military prepare and conduct this march? With these questions, a conversation began with a direct participant in the events described, the commander of the Russian landing battalion that advanced to Kosovo, Colonel Sergei Pavlov.

NATO planes were lined up over our camp in battle formations and went to Belgrade. We continued to patrol our area of responsibility, carried out peacekeeping tasks within the framework of the mandate given. There was not even a hint that we could move somewhere. But to be honest, I had a premonition. Premonition often helps me out, it did not fail even then. I suddenly felt that events were coming in which we would be active participants, although I personally had two months before the replacement.

Usually during this period, any commander is not particularly zealous in the service. And I have just the opposite. The people said: “What did this find on the battalion commander, because it’s time for him to relax and get ready for the rotation?”

In May, we completed the transfer of equipment for the summer period of operation. I approached this issue very seriously and toughly asked my subordinates, focusing on the quality of the translation. Ultimately, this was the guarantor of success.

We were given only 8 hours to prepare for the march of 700 km! No one had a tighter time frame in my memory, even in the Airborne Forces. Can anyone repeat what we managed then? Big question. I'm not sure.

We had to shoot three posts that night. People were far away in the mountains, communication was lame. While they transmitted it, while it was dubbed, while we were correctly understood and we gathered everyone, time has passed. People got the feeling that something serious was being prepared. The tension was general, but I did not see that they were afraid.

... The time "H" came and our column began to move ... When the combat order was given, we realized that in an hour the whole world would know about us. Can you imagine our feelings? How will a country that is on its knees react to this? God forbid, there will be failure ... We were not afraid for ourselves, for our own skin. There was a feeling of great responsibility, because then there would be no excuse. How to look people in the eye - why didn't you do it, didn't do it? And you are always afraid for people. God forbid…

The march passed without loss. People later realized that my severity paid off - during the march not a single piece of equipment failed. The task was completed. But they blamed me for excessive rigidity and exactingness, they said that it could have been softer. The truth was on my side. Now I sleep peacefully, knowing that not a single mother, not a single wife curses me ... We brought everyone without losses, the task was completed without clashes. Then I crossed myself and said: "Thank God, everyone is alive."

Was there a danger on the route? How did events unfold?

Our passage was secured on high level. So we never say that I and General Rybkin did everything. The decision was made at the top, and we only performed it qualitatively. We practically "flew" Serbian towns. Police patrols and border guards provided a "green corridor". We were led, intelligence worked on five points.

I assumed there would be something. An hour or two or three passed, and someone could come to their senses, the NATO troops could land by landing method. What does it cost them? After all, we were confronted by a huge colossus of NATO. Of course, we were preparing for surprises, up to clashes. We had a full load of ammunition. But the calculation was for surprise - on Sunday we moved straight along the autobahn, although I know that the option of moving through the mountains was considered. We flew along the road. Then I learned that the American command had decided to land the rangers, organize an ambush and detain us in any way. Allegedly, some kind of cylinder came off on board the VTA aircraft with the capture group, injured someone, and this idea fell through. Maybe they were smart enough not to bring the matter to clashes. But we didn't have much fun.

Soldiers and officers were awarded for this march?

You are the first journalist who asks about the awards of soldiers and officers. But this a big problem. Everyone is only interested in one thing - who gave the order to march? And what is my business, who gave it? I gave my order immediate superior, and I have no right to ask questions about who in the upper echelons made the decision. It's none of my business, because we received an order, and went to carry it out.

I know that not everyone was awarded. The medal "Participant of the forced march Bosnia-Kosovo" was established. Someone was marked, but I know for sure that two of my deputies did not receive it. Why dont know. Five years ago, in Ivanovo, I met with my deputy for educational affairs Yevgeny Morozov and the battalion chief of staff Vadim Poloyan, who were left without medals. Laughter, and nothing more. They say to me: “Commander, how is it?”. What can I do? I was ready to give my medal, but I needed two ...

But I know for sure that those who did not participate in this march received these awards. Our entire award structure, those who sit in the headquarters, had to crawl out of their skin to find and reward all the participants in the march. Two years after the march, a soldier from a village in the Ryazan region came to me and said that in the village everyone was teasing him, they say, you hang noodles, that you are a marcher in Kosovo, but there is no medal. I had to call the personnel authorities again and demand ...

For me personally, awards are not important, I say this without frills. The best reward is that I kept the fighters for whom I was responsible ... It was very difficult to get people out of such a mess ... Experience shows that losses - returnable and irretrievable - far from all combat ones. A huge percentage of losses due to sloppiness, due to carelessness, careless handling of weapons, hindsight. In those conditions, we avoided this, we did not have a single injury.

For ten years in a row, journalists visited me in Ryazan, and then a different message was heard in the media. famous surname. It turned out that I was involuntarily erased from history. The Russian mentality immediately worked - they stopped coming to me and asking questions. A lot of assessments, new versions, conjectures have appeared, but I take this calmly ...

When you entered Kosovo, what and who did you encounter?

At 1.00-1.30 at night we passed Pristina - the entire population was on the streets. They delayed us a bit. When they were outside the city, a formidable call sounded from Moscow. The column was stopped. General Rybkin had a long conversation on the phone with someone, then we convinced him that we still had to go six kilometers and complete the task.

We had to take the airfield by 5.00 in the morning. By this time, units of the Serbian Armed Forces should have left it and the British brigade should have approached. We beat her by an hour and a half. Scouts reported that a unit of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was approaching. We managed to take positions and were ready for battle. They seized the runway, blocked it with armored personnel carriers, cleared mines from the main approach routes, blocked the highway to Macedonia, and set up positions along the perimeter. Trenches and caponiers for armored vehicles were dug in the rocky ground for three days.

... An hour and a half later, after we had settled down, one of the posts reported that British intelligence had approached. The British stopped within sight and simply "stunned" when they saw our paratroopers. drove up English general, talked in "Esperanto" - broken English. "Who you are? What are you doing here? We should be here, ”I heard about such words. I had to answer that they were late, that here were the positions of the Russian landing. The general was escorted to the headquarters of our general. There were no collisions...

Serbian girls kiss battalion commander Sergei Pavlov 14 years after the legendary attack on Pristina. In Russia, many do not know their heroes by sight

Sergey Evgenievich, the question is essentially - what airborne battalion did in Kosovo?

Yugoslavia was bombed, NATO solved the problem of Kosovo and Metohija, a disputed territory with an interethnic and interreligious conflict, by force. It is not for me to give a political assessment, whether Milosevic is right when he sent troops there or not, and who started to cut whom. Politicians and historians will understand. But the West acted here, defiantly ignoring Russia. Chernomyrdin met for days with Albright, but as a result, Kosovo began to be divided into areas of responsibility without Russia.

Then it was decided to go to Kosovo on their own. Our battalion was the vanguard - military formation, which captures a line, a piece of terrain, an area and ensures the approach of the main forces. We had to ensure the landing of our main forces at the airfield. True, for a number of reasons, the troops did not land, and the Russian peacekeeping contingent arrived by another route. The main thing that we have succeeded in is that Russia has taken part in the fate of the Kosovo Serbs. Initially, this was enough to prevent the genocide that the Albanians were doing there. This was our mission. What happened next is well known, but it is not for us to judge. Anyway, I don't want to give political assessments. And as a person, I am very bitter... Now, 14 years later, we are communicating with the Serbs, and they teach us a lesson in patriotism, love for their land, people, love for Russia.

What happened in Kosovo in those days?

We saw what the Kosovo Liberation Army was doing. They burned and blew Orthodox churches, slaughtered the Serbs. They didn’t meddle at the airfield - they knew that they would be rebuffed. And they repeatedly tried to enter the dairy plant in Pristina, staged provocations. We took this territory under protection, thereby saving many Serbs from reprisals. The Albanians showed insulting gestures, captured the Serbs, put a knife to their throats and tried to cut them in front of our eyes. And we had no right to open fire. Soldiers ran out, became human shields, dragged people away. All this was done under video cameras. pure water provocations…

Is it true that then a few shots were enough for the situation to explode?

Firstly, the fact that the British approached us became a deterrent. Our commanders acted wisely - they launched them at the airfield, gave them a place to sleep. But we were constantly threatened.

We received intelligence from which directions to expect attacks, we masked ourselves as best we could, restricted all movement, we were warned that Albanian snipers were operating, that the task was set to take our paratroopers prisoner, kill, slaughter, about which the commander personally warned us General Staff General Kvashnin. But someone was smart enough not to climb. We organized a round-the-clock combat duty.

Soldiers - well done, no sloppiness or relaxation. The people were really ready. We had experienced contractors, good officers.

... I will not forget the picture in the first days after the march. One 37-year-old contract soldier, an experienced soldier, lies on the parapet of the trench and listens. "What are you listening to?" - "Will they fly or not?" I answer him like in a movie: "Don't worry, they will arrive, of course."

They provoked us all the time - they let cattle directly into our positions, and we knew that it was not shepherds, but scouts, who led the animals. They drove them away, for this there is different tricks. The main thing in that situation was not to break loose, not to provoke shooting. Next to our positions was a fuel and lubricant depot. The Kosovars robbed him, took out fuel on tractors, and constantly provoked the fighters.

When our main forces began to arrive by sea and by air, it became much easier, the tension subsided. We have been well reinforced. We met the troops, sent them to the sectors, while we ourselves served at the airfield.

14 years have passed and I can't forget anything. The march is before my eyes, from the first second to the last. I was responsible for almost everything, and I still can’t forget this feeling of responsibility. I have never had such stress in my life. I remember everything - preparation, “races” on the autobahn, a stabbed woman, tears of women and old people ... This is the most vivid impression in my life.

I dream about the march to Kosovo, and will dream about it until the end of my days. I continue to command at night ... We basically did everything right - we completed the task, saved people and equipment ...

Abduction: holes in the political string bag

Battalion commander Sergei Pavlov is a man of the old school, well-mannered, correct and laconic. Now he teaches at the Ryazan Higher Airborne Command School named after General of the Army V.F. Margelov. Cadets often ask him to talk about that march.

... Undoubtedly, the rapid march of the Airborne Forces to Pristina in June 1999 from with good reason can be called a small victory for Russia. And it was ensured not by office successes in diplomacy and not even strong-willed punches on the table, but by a simple battalion commander of an airborne battalion and his subordinates.
True, as often happens in such cases, victory always has many fathers, and defeat is an orphan. With surprise, the Airborne Forces later learned about many of the "heroes" of this legendary march, who either did not participate in it at all, or had, to put it mildly, a very, very indirect relationship. Some of them still sit in the State Duma, hold positions in executive bodies authorities. Although in fairness it should be noted that the manner of sculpting fake "heroes" went from meticulous to "sensational" media, often not bothering to establish and convey the truth to people.

They say that on the occasion of the successful operation to occupy the airfield in Slatina, three gold medals were issued. Allegedly, they were awarded to politicians and important bosses. “Paratroopers don’t need gold,” they assured me in the Union of Russian Paratroopers. “But all the soldiers and officers who took part in the events of 14 years ago should be marked by the state.” But even ordinary commemorative medals not everyone got it.

For veterans of those events, this is just a pleasant trifle, which, perhaps, is even remembered only once a year, putting on awards at ceremonial events. It is not customary for paratroopers to flaunt awards. But if the command orders to arrive with orders, you should have seen this iconostasis! But still…

But this is only one side of the coin. The other side is that the brave, Russian-style daring landing turned out to be completely unsupported in the political plane. Yes, the Russian peacekeeping contingent served regularly for several more years in Bosnia and Kosovo, embodying a model for the fulfillment of a peacekeeping mission.

But the facts are stubborn things - the Kosovo Serbs have lost their homeland. Those few tens of thousands that remained in the region are still writing letters to the Kremlin asking them to be granted Russian citizenship, because they were turned away in Belgrade. Dozens of Orthodox monasteries in Kosovo have been looted, hundreds of churches have been destroyed and burned. Most of the population left those places. And Russia, with all its breadth and abundance of resources, could not resist this wave, could not become an obstacle to injustice and outright evil. Although back in late 1999, the command of the Russian brigade stationed in Bosnia and Herzegovina informed Moscow of a favorable moment for the creation of Russian military bases in the Balkans. This call was never heard, and history, as you know, does not tolerate the subjunctive mood ...

Today, the reality is that the mental gap between Serbia and Russia is widening. Older generation, especially those people who remember the times of the USSR and the SFRY, communicated and worked together with peacekeepers from Russia, still feel an invisible connection with the Russian world, cherish it and are afraid to interrupt it. But the younger generation in the same Belgrade no longer knows the Russian language, far from the glorious and tragic pages of our joint history. The youth, as in the megacities of Russia, is infected with the same "disease of consumerism", in which questions of spirit and originality do not matter at all.

Many Serbs, Serbia proper and the Republika Srpska of Bosnia and Herzegovina are already deployed to the West. In relations with Russia, the local elite sees primarily economic interest, that is, only business. Other spheres - cultural and spiritual, questions of a common faith in best case only declared and faded into the background. Serbs are learning to survive without Russia, although the decision to lay the South Stream gas pipeline through Serbian territories is greeted with great enthusiasm and anticipation big changes for the better. As they joke here, let "it is better for the Russians to turn off the gas than the Germans to let it in."

With all the warmth and sincerity of the Serbian public figures and officials who met and communicated with the delegation of the Russian Airborne Forces, President of the Republic of Srpska Miodrag Dodik, who regularly holds operational meetings with representatives of Gazprom, did not find time to talk with the participants of the legendary throw to Kosovo. Probably, nevertheless, priorities and preferences have changed ...

“... Russia was systematically squeezed out of the Balkans. By different reasons. The long-term efforts of the Russian peacekeepers are in vain. The Balkans have reoriented themselves towards well-fed Europe and are flirting with the United States. On the eve of the NATO aggression, the Serbs liked to repeat: “There are 200 million of us and Russia, we are little brothers” ... - this is the opinion of one of the paratroopers of the peacekeeping contingent. - We will never forget how the Serbs welcomed us. So in World War II, Europe liberated from the Nazis met Russians. This is never forgotten, never... I recently read a comment on the Internet: “We then wiped the nose of NATO. They were really frightened, but as always, they betrayed us ... They betrayed their own. The soldiers were betrayed, the Serbs… And that’s why they don’t respect us…”. To realize that there is some truth in this is insulting and bitter. But it's not our fault. We did our best. But it’s still a shame for the state, very much. Still..."

Uglevik – Banja Luka – Moscow

A leaflet on the Serbian and Albanian population of KOSOVO, prepared and distributed by unknown persons in April-May 1999: WANTED BILLY CLINTON, alive or embalmed, very dangerous criminal, a recidivist thief, a sexually horny, although, in fact, a rather sexually helpless person who fucked the oath given to the Albanians to liberate Kosovo. Bounty: $45 million pocket (or F-117 Black Falcon in good condition and without a pilot). Please send any available information to: Kosovo Liberation Army, NATO, Brussels, Greater Albania. Note: the leaflet is written in Serbo-Croatian, but with a transcription that reproduces the Albanian pronunciation

Residents of the capital of the Republic of Srpska Banja Luka welcome a delegation of Russian paratroopers with a banner

Reserve Colonel Sergei Pavlov is the commander of the battalion that marched to Kosovo and occupied the Slatina airfield. Now - Associate Professor of the Ryazan Higher Airborne command school named after General of the Army V.F. Margelov

Reserve Colonel Hero of Russia Alexander Margelov talks with a Russian volunteer who fought in the Balkans, Sergei Sukharev

Beret, vest and the Order of Margelov were transferred for legendary general Ratko Mladic, who is in the dungeons in The Hague, to his son Darko

Zoltan Dani, commander of the Yugoslav air defense unit, tells how in March 1999 he shot down an F-117A "Stealth" stealth aircraft

Russian paratroopers lay a wreath at the memorial on the site of the Jasenovac concentration camp, where during the Second World War, the Croatian Ustashe tortured about 700 thousand people

Delegation of the Union of Russian Paratroopers at a conference dedicated to the 14th anniversary of the March on Pristina, in the city of Ugljevik, Republika Srpska

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After the collapse Soviet Union Russia's position in world politics has been extremely weakened. As a rule, instead of defending your own geo political interests Russian diplomats supported the position of the Western powers, no matter how much it contradicted the interests of Russia itself.

Bombs for Belgrade

It is characteristic that Russian Foreign Minister of the early 1990s Andrey Kozyrev went down in history as "Mr. Yes" as opposed to his Soviet predecessor Andrei Gromyko known as "Mr. No".

In the late 1990s, the situation began to change. One of the first fundamental confrontations between Russia and the West in recent history our country became the “Kosovo conflict”.

Kosovo armed separatists on the territory of the province, which is part of Yugoslavia, have unleashed a war against the Serbs since 1996, seeking to create independent state for the Albanian population of the area.

To suppress terrorist activities in Kosovo, units of the Armed Forces of Yugoslavia were introduced, which carried out operations to destroy illegal armed groups.

Since 1998, the NATO countries have actually taken the side of the Albanian separatists, blaming only official Belgrade for the escalation of violence.

Western countries tried to achieve the right to use force through the UN Security Council, but they ran into strong objections from Russia, which disagrees with blaming only one of the parties to the conflict.

As a result, the operation was carried out under the auspices of NATO forces. On March 24, 1999, for the first time since the Second World War, a large-scale armed conflict began in Europe. Aircraft of NATO forces subjected the positions of Yugoslav troops in Kosovo, Belgrade and other cities of the country to massive bombing strikes. Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, at that moment heading for a visit to the United States, turned the plane over the Atlantic and urgently returned to Russia.

The bombing of Yugoslavia continued from March 24 to June 10, 1999, and led to great destruction and mass casualties.

Game ahead of the curve

The Yugoslav authorities were forced to agree with UN Security Council Resolution 1244, according to which Yugoslav troops were withdrawn from Kosovo, and a NATO peacekeeping contingent took their place.

The position of Russia, which acted in defense of the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia and the interests of the Serbian population of the region, was not taken into account.

Under these conditions, political and military leadership decided to conduct an extremely daring and unexpected "preemptive" operation.

On June 10, 1999, the Russian paratroopers, who were part of the international peacekeeping force in Bosnia (SFOR), received a secret order: to form a mechanized column and a detachment of 200 people, quickly overcome 600 kilometers and occupy the Slatina airfield, located near administrative center Kosovo city of Pristina, ahead of NATO forces. The entry of NATO units into Kosovo was scheduled for June 12, and the Slatina airfield was supposed to be the main transport hub NATO forces in the province.

Any leak of information about the plans of the Russian military put the operation in danger of failure. But the Russians managed to hide their plans - the Western powers have become accustomed to Russia's inability to take decisive action.

The Russian column under the command of Lieutenant General Viktor Zavarzin began its forced march. On armored vehicles, the letters SFOR were changed to KFOR - the official name of the peacekeeping forces in Kosovo. On the night of June 12, 1999, Russian paratroopers entered the territory of the rebellious region. The Serbian population met Russian soldiers flowers as saviors and liberators.

By 7 a.m. on June 12, a column of the Russian Airborne Forces occupied the Slatina airfield and organized all-round defense on it.

General Jackson's Moonwalk

Future plans Russian leadership provided for the transfer by air of an airborne division from Russia, the presence of which was supposed to ensure the upholding of the political interests of our country, in particular, obtaining its own separate peacekeeping sector of responsibility in Kosovo.

This plan, however, failed to materialize, as NATO allies Hungary and Bulgaria refused to provide Russia with an "air corridor".

200 Russian soldiers found themselves surrounded by several thousand heavily armed NATO troops.

At around 11:00 am on June 12, advanced NATO forces approached the airfield "Slatina" occupied by paratroopers. Several RAF helicopters attempted to land, but were thwarted by Russian armored personnel carriers.

The commander of the NATO forces in the Balkans, who arrived at the Russian checkpoint, is a British General Michael Jackson ordered NATO tanks to enter the airfield. At the same time, the general himself, turning his back on the Russian paratroopers, began to direct the movement of tanks with gestures, moving closer and closer to the checkpoint a la his famous namesake singer.

The commander of the Russian checkpoint gave the order to his subordinates to take the tanks at the sight of grenade launchers and asked the NATO general to stop his actions. The tanks stopped.

According to NATO soldiers, at that moment the commander of NATO forces in Europe, General Wesley Clark, fell into a real frenzy, demanding to destroy the Russians by occupying the airfield.

However, General Jackson, who was personally under the gun of Russian grenade launchers, told Clark that he was not going to start the Third World War.

The assault on the airfield did not happen - its systematic siege began. Deprived of reinforcements, the paratroopers, however, were not going to capitulate.

Clark and Heroes

While the military stood opposite each other, the politicians were negotiating. Alas, the weak political position of Russia in the early 1990s did not allow it to achieve what it wanted.

The Russian peacekeeping contingent received the right to be present in Kosovo, however, not in a separate sector, but in the zone of responsibility of Germany, France and the United States. The airfield "Slatina" remained under the control of the Russians, but was used jointly.

Russian soldiers were in Kosovo until 2003. In view of the fact that Russia never received its own sector of control, Russian peacekeepers failed to prevent the expulsion of the Serbian population of the region from Kosovo. Based on this, a "conspiracy" version was put forward, according to which the march on Pristina was inspired by the United States, which by any means tried to stop the exodus of the Serbs from the region and the subsequent humanitarian catastrophe. The authors of this version believe that Russia "deceived" the Kosovo Serbs by not providing them with protection.

No matter how one regards the political results of those events, one must pay tribute to the courage of the Russian paratroopers, who honorably completed the most difficult task and did not flinch in the face of a formidable enemy. In commemoration of the military operation, the medal "Participant of the forced march on June 12, 1999 Bosnia-Kosovo" was established, which was awarded to the participants in the forced march and those who were responsible for its provision.

BUT General Wesley Clark, who demanded the destruction of Russian paratroopers at the Slatina airfield, soon after those events lost his post. The Pentagon considered that such a commander did not meet the requirements of the present. In 2004, Clark tried to become a candidate for US President from the Democratic Party, but was defeated, losing John Kerry who, in turn, lost the election George Bush Jr.. In 2010, businessman and educator Wesley Clark said in an interview: "Looking back 11 years ago, I'm all for it - we did the right thing then." So the decision of the Pentagon turned out to be wise - some never get smarter.

Among the many military aphorisms attributed to the Generalissimo, Count Alexander Suvorov-Rymnik, there is one: "Who surprised, he won." At different times, various foreign armies, who in one way or another had to deal with a Russian soldier, were convinced of the validity of this military leader's maxim at different times in their own skin. One such lesson in the relatively recent past was learned by the NATO military, which unleashed a war in the former Yugoslavia and later shamefacedly repainted it as a "peacekeeping operation." At the same time, NATO soldiers completely forgot that a soldier remains a soldier, regardless of the color of his helmet and chevron - protective or blue. And also - that in Russia the blue beret is a symbol, first of all, not of peacekeeping humility, but of airborne courage and determination. What Russian paratroopers demonstrated to the whole astonished world, having made on the night of June 12, 1999, the legendary 620-kilometer march through Bosnia and Herzegovina and the territory of Serbia to Kosovo in order to take control of the Slatina airport in the Kosovo capital Pristina.

... Much later from the lips of one of the main actors that operation - then Major of the Airborne Forces, scout Yunus-bek Yevkurov (now - the head of the Republic of Ingushetia) - it will become known that the first plans to occupy the Slatina airport appeared at the Russian military command back in May. It was then that Major Yevkurov received an order from a group of 18 special forces soldiers to advance to the airport area and take control of it. Here it should be noted that “taking control” meant not taking a well-fortified and guarded object with the help of incomplete two dozen fighters, but secretly finding out everything that was possible about it - so that then, at the time of the actual capture operation, its participants would have full representation of the object. And although the details of this special operation, which became the prelude to the famous Pristina throw, are still not made public, according to further development events, we can draw an unambiguous conclusion: the special forces performed their task perfectly!

This conclusion can be based on a simple fact. As a direct participant in the Pristina throw, Colonel of the Airborne Forces Sergei Pavlov, at that time the commander of a combined battalion of paratroopers from the Russian peacekeeping forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina, recalls, the order he received took very little time to prepare the march. And at the same time, it did not contain any indications of "working out the task" or "studying the object." As Pavlov writes in his notes (quoted from the publication in " Russian newspaper” in July 2003), “arriving at the brigade headquarters, I received a combat order from the commander: the battalion as forward detachment it is necessary to make a 620-kilometer march and, by the morning of June 12, capture the Slatina airfield, 12 kilometers southwest of Pristina. The time for readiness for the march was determined at 3.00 on June 11. Thus, I had 8 hours for preparation, including 3 hours of daylight hours. Arriving in Simin Khan, I was convinced that under the leadership of the chief of staff, Major Vadim Poloyan, people were preparing calmly, without fuss. Nobody had a chance to sleep that night, the call of the ZAS apparatus (classifying communications equipment. - RP) resounded at 5.00. The time has come to act, and the whole military mechanism has started working. The battalion went. Confident, beautiful, powerful."

However, the brevity of the preparations for the march was also explained by the fact that the battalion commander Sergei Pavlov, in his own words, long before these events felt that something unusual was being prepared, and demanded that his subordinates carefully prepare equipment and equipment for summer period and a possible march. Moreover, as retired Colonel-General Leonid Ivashov recalls, the march of the Pavlovsk battalion would have taken place in any case - not to Pristina, but to another city. After all, according to Ivashov, “we planned to bring in three battalions. One was supposed to go to Kosovska Mitrovica and, as it were, mark our sector. The second wanted to land on the airfield in Pristina. And the third, as a reserve, was to land on Serbian territory near the city of Nis. But, if you remember, the Hungarians and Romanians did not allow us to fly over their air space. Therefore, the battalion, which was supposed to go to Mitrovica, turned to Pristina.

Slatina Airport, 1999. Photo: Sergey Metelitsa / TASS

According to General Ivashov, among the arguments with which he managed to convince the then Minister of Defense of Russia, Marshal Igor Sergeyev, to give the go-ahead to the Pristina throw, there was this: if NATO units, which were also preparing to enter Kosovo, decided to resist the Russian paratroopers by force, in Moscow there would be generals who could persuade the Serbian army to come out in support of them. It is difficult to say how true this statement is. But the fact that a convoy of 15 armored personnel carriers and 35 trucks of Russian peacekeepers, marching towards Pristina, now and then met Serbian units withdrawn from Kosovo, who clearly expressed their sympathy for the "brothers" - the absolute truth. And one must think that if someone opened fire on the Russian soldiers, the Serbian ones would not stand aside: their hatred for the American military and their NATO allies, who shamelessly destroyed their country under the guise of a “peacekeeping operation,” was too great.

“After conferring, we decided to leave some of the equipment in order to“ lighten ”the column, recalls Sergey Pavlov. - We already had reliable data that the advanced units of NATO troops crossed the border Federal Republic Yugoslavia. We had to hurry, because we had to overcome much more long haul than them. All sorts of thoughts were in my head, but the main one was to be in time. The column was moving at a speed of 80 km/h and more along a difficult route, which is hard to overcome even on a Zhiguli, let alone on military equipment. And all this in 36-degree heat. The news of our appearance, apparently, instantly spread throughout the country. Cameramen began to appear, crowds of people applauded us on the streets of the cities. The men rejoiced, the women wept. Belgrade flew by in one breath. It became more difficult to move: the roads were filled with columns of Yugoslav troops leaving Kosovo. The Serbian military almost crawled out of the cabins, greeting our soldiers.”

Indirect confirmation that the Pristina throw would not have been so effective if the group of Major Yevkurov had not been successful is the following words of Colonel Pavlov: “Our passage was secured at a high level. We were led, intelligence worked for five points. And after reconnaissance, the paratroopers themselves worked for five points. By 7 am on June 12, 1999, the task assigned to the combined battalion under the command of Sergei Pavlov was completed: Russian paratroopers completely took control of the Slatina airport. And thus dealt a serious blow to NATO plans to use it as a base for deploying its peacekeepers, main task which was the actual support for the actions of the Kosovo separatists.

The Russian paratroopers inflicted the same serious blow with the Pristina throw on the arrogant attitude of the Western military towards the Russian ones. It is no coincidence that, after one after another, the NATO generals failed in their attempts to convince the Russians to surrender the airport, they began to explain this by “unwillingness to start a third world war". In reality, as the direct participants in the events later recalled, the NATO officers were simply frightened: the Russian paratroopers were too resolute. It came to a direct demonstration of force, when the British tanks, which had arrived in the morning and were brazenly trying to overcome our checkpoint, were openly shown grenade launchers aiming at them with close range. And in order to prevent NATO helicopters from landing on the Slatina airfield, the drivers of Russian armored personnel carriers literally danced on the concrete, every time a few seconds ahead of the "turntables" in the chosen landing square.

The West, primarily politicians and high-ranking military officers, could not survive such a shame calmly. Direct insinuations were used: in particular, the story was widely circulated that our paratroopers allegedly begged food from NATO and were forced to accept handouts from the Serbs. But what was completely true was that the unexpected success of the battalion of the then Russian politicians did not dare to develop. Having not received permission from the Hungarians and Bulgarians to allow military transport aircraft to fly through their airspace, Moscow eventually abandoned the plan to bring the grouping in Slatina to three battalions. And the whole effect of the sudden forced march was eventually nullified by politicians: Russia never received its peacekeeping sector in Kosovo, and the airport captured by the landing force was used not only by Russian, but also by NATO military.

And yet in history Russian army of the post-Soviet era, the Pristina throw has forever remained an example of the excellent coordination of the actions of units and the ability of Russian soldiers to carry out the most difficult orders and achieve success in the most difficult conditions. In principle, this, of course, is nothing new, but after the collapse Soviet army her successor for a long time could not regain her former abilities. So the attack on Pristina was the first symptom of the recovery of the Russian army. And the evidence that she finally went on the mend was the operation of “polite people”, which was very similar in speed and audacity, thanks to which Crimea was reunited with the Motherland. It is noteworthy that even the sashes on the medals that were awarded to the participants in these two operations are to a large extent similar ...

Further, on June 12, 1943, a hundred-day Carpathian raid of a partisan unit under the command of Kovpak began. This campaign became one of the most high-profile partisan operations of the Great Patriotic War.

Image copyright Reuters Image caption Russian military from the 98th division have the status of "detained" and not "captured", which may speed up their extradition

"They arrived at the Matveev Kurgan station and began to settle down with tents ... "Mom, everything is fine with us, we are unloading and setting up tents," such an optimistic SMS. And he immediately warned: "Our phones are being taken away, there will be no connection, as opportunity, I’ll get in touch,” a woman who turned to the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers in Kostroma tells the BBC Russian Service.

She says that she saw her son, Yegor Pochtoev, on a video of supposedly captured Russian soldiers, which was distributed by the Security Service of Ukraine. She still has no contact with him.

For a week now, journalists and bloggers in Russia have been investigating reports that Russian paratroopers allegedly ended up in a combat zone in Ukraine, some even died or were captured. It's about about servicemen of two divisions of the Airborne Forces - the 98th Svirskaya, stationed in Ivanovo, and the 76th Pskov.

The Russian military denies the involvement of the paratroopers in hostilities, recognizing only the possibility that individual groups servicemen could get lost at the border and end up on the territory of a neighboring state.

At the same time, journalists who are trying to investigate the death of paratroopers face threats against them.

Documents in BMD

The story of Russian paratroopers who, according to Ukrainians, fought in Donetsk region and spent there unsuccessful military operation, began a week ago - August 21.

Then the Ukrainian authorities announced that during the battle they got a BMD-2, allegedly belonging to the Russian Airborne Forces with tactical signs painted over.

Personal documents were found in it, including an evening verification journal containing the names of the soldiers and the unit number - V/Ch 74268 of the first parachute company Pskov division of the Russian Airborne Forces, according to the journalist of the Inter TV channel Roman Bochkala, who published pictures of these documents.

The official representative of the Russian Ministry of Defense, Igor Konashenkov, said that such documents are no longer used in the Russian army for about five years, and the BMD-2 is in service with the Ukrainian army.

Many military experts also doubted that the evening verification log could end up in a combat vehicle on the front lines, since it is usually not taken out of the barracks.

Pages in social networks

Then bloggers began to look for pages in social networks of people whose names are contained in the magazine.

It quickly became clear that many of the list own accounts on Vkontakte.

Many of these pages had one thing in common - their owners last visited them on August 15-16.

In addition, many had closed "walls" - a section where anyone could leave a message.

Subsequently, several pages were removed. But some other owners were visited in the following days.

Burials and attacks

On the page, which belongs to Leonid Kichatkin, on August 22, information was published about his death and burial in a cemetery in the town of Vybuty near Pskov. The message was signed by his wife.

Subsequently, it was deleted, and an announcement appeared on the wife's page that Leonid Kichatkin was alive.

Several journalists Russian editions were able to get through to her, but on the phone a female voice also allegedly said that the officer was alive.

Moreover, according to them, the woman handed the phone to a certain man who identified himself as Leonid Kichatkin and said that he was perfectly healthy.

Nevertheless, on August 25, a funeral was held in Vybuty - the local newspaper "Pskovskaya Gubernia", the online publication "Elephant" and the TV channel "Rain" spoke about them.

Unnamed graves

The very next day, August 26, there were reports of threats to journalists who had come to Pskov to seek information about the victims.

The Dozhd correspondent spoke about the attempted detention at the cemetery. According to him, the threats were addressed to the journalists of "Russian Planet", "Fontanka.Ru" and "Novaya Gazeta".

At the same time, some acquaintances of those paratroopers whose names were in the verification log and whose pages were found on social networks refused to talk to journalists by phone, fearing, according to them, wiretapping.

On the afternoon of August 27, the Dozhd TV channel reported that, according to its information, the signs were removed from the crosses on the graves of Osipov and Kichatkin.

soldier mothers

On August 25, the Minister of Defense of Ukraine Valeriy Heletey on his Facebook page published an appeal to relatives of the Russian military, who, according to him, were captured on the territory of Ukraine.

Image copyright UKRAINIAN MINISTRY OF DEFENCE Image caption Video footage shown by the SBU

He said that "a lot of Russian servicemen" were taken prisoner, while they are officially on the exercises. The minister suggested that the relatives take the military from Ukraine themselves, without explaining, however, how to do it.

Meanwhile, the Committees of Soldiers' Mothers of Russia began to be contacted by people who believed that their relatives serving in the Russian army could be involved in the Ukrainian conflict.

Happy August 26 Chapter Saratov branch The Union of Soldiers' Mothers held a press conference with the mother of paratrooper Ilya Maksimov, who served in the Pskov Airborne Division.

On the same day, she told the BBC Russian Service that the political officer of the unit in which her son served told her that he was on exercises in Rostov region, will stay there for another two or three weeks, adding that there is no connection.

“He called dad, he didn’t call from his phone. The phone rang, they turned it on and said: “Your son will talk to you now.” He said: “Everything is fine. I am on exercises in the Rostov region. The conversation was literally one and a half minutes. At 11:43, right about this time. Dad asked him: "How are you?" He says: “Everything is fine, everything is fine, I can’t talk for a long time, because the phone is not mine, dear connection,” she said.

Ivanovo paratroopers

The families of the Kostroma paratroopers (the 331st regiment of the Svirskaya 98th Airborne Division is located in Kostroma, although the division itself is deployed in Ivanovo), who appeared on the SBU video, met with the command of the unit, which actually admitted the fact that their servicemen were on the territory of Ukraine.

"The deputy commander said that there had been a transfer from range to range and the two cars that were the last to get lost, because there was no border as such and there is no mark, no navigator, there was nothing, they got lost. They are in the Rostov region they were walking, and then, when they started to fire, they realized that they had driven into the territory of Ukraine, got into the territory, and two cars were hit," Lyudmila Khokhlova from the Kostroma Committee of Soldiers' Mothers, who participated in a meeting.

“While our guys were going out and figuring out where they were, they were taken prisoner by the SBU, the Security Service. Ten people were taken prisoner. There was no resistance there, there was no fight, and there was no armed resistance. where they ended up. And they were taken prisoner," Khokhlova conveyed the words of the officer.

Relatives are asked to return the paratroopers home.

overcrowded hospitals

On August 27, it became known that the Human Rights Council under the President of Russia turned to the Investigative Committee with a request to check the information about the death of nine contract servicemen from the 18th Shali motorized rifle brigade.

Information about the death of nine servicemen was received two weeks ago.

According to the HRC, among the dead there are natives of Dagestan.

In addition, Council member Ella Polyakova told the BBC that according to her, there are currently many wounded in hospitals in southern Russia.

In the morning they were surrounded by dozens of times superior NATO forces. In fact, their success was purely symbolic. But after all, there was no war, although the commander-in-chief of NATO gave the order to destroy the paratroopers.

The time “H” came and our column set in motion ... When the combat order was given, we realized that in an hour the whole world would know about us. Can you imagine our feelings? How will a country that is on its knees react to this? God forbid, there will be failure ... We were not afraid for ourselves, for our own skin. There was a feeling of great responsibility, because then there would be no excuse. How to look people in the eye - why didn't you do it, didn't do it? And you are always afraid for people. God forbid…

It looked like a picture from another life - flowers on the armor, Serbian girls kissing Russian soldiers, stormy jubilation. A battalion of Russian paratroopers took up positions at the Slatina airfield in Kosovo, as a direct participant in the events, the commander of the Russian paratrooper battalion that advanced to Kosovo, Colonel Sergei Pavlov, said.

At about 11:00 am, an unmanned reconnaissance aircraft appeared in the sky above the airfield, then from the checkpoint at the entrance to the Slatina airport, the battalion command received a message about the arrival of the first column of NATO forces. They were British Jeeps. From the other side, British tanks were approaching the airfield.

Both columns stopped in front of Russian checkpoints. Landing helicopters appeared in the sky. British helicopter pilots made several attempts to land on the airfield, but these attempts were thwarted by the crews of Russian armored personnel carriers. As soon as the helicopter came in for a landing, an armored personnel carrier immediately rushed towards it, thus preventing its maneuver. Failing, the British pilots flew away.

General Michael Jackson, Commander of NATO Forces in the Balkans, stepped forward tank column and, turning his back on the Russian soldiers, he began to call the tanks forward with gestures, moving with his back to the checkpoint. One of the officers, who was at the checkpoint, demanded that General Jackson not to do so, at gunpoint. At the same time, Russian soldiers took British tanks into the sight of hand grenade launchers. Thus, the seriousness of the intentions of the Russian soldiers was shown. British tanks remained in their positions, stopping attempts to break through to the territory of the Slatina airport.

Although the commander of NATO forces in Europe American general Wesley Clark ordered British General Michael Jackson to seize the airfield before the Russians, the Briton replied that he was not going to start the Third World War

Medal "Participant of the march on June 12, 1999 Bosnia - Kosovo"
Departmental medal of the Ministry of Defense Russian Federation, established by order of the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation No. 75 of February 11, 2000.

According to the Regulations, the medal "Participant of the march on June 12, 1999 Bosnia - Kosovo" is awarded to military personnel and civilian personnel of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation for courage, courage and valor shown in the preparation, provision and conduct of the forced march on June 12, 1999 Bosnia - Kosovo.
The medal is awarded by order of the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation.

According to internet sites

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