The NATO bombing of Republika Srpska in 1995 was a precedent that gave the West a sense of apparent impunity and marked the beginning of its unlawful violent interference in the internal affairs of other countries, violating their sovereignty and independence, the Embassy of the Russian Federation in BiH stated.
The Embassy stressed that NATO’s Operation Deliberate Force, carried out in August and September 1995, represented an unjustified act of aggression and resulted in a large number of innocent civilian victims.
The Embassy reminded that it has been reliably established that depleted uranium munitions were used during the bombing, which caused a drastic increase in cancer cases across BiH, still being recorded to this day.
“This was done by the West, which now uses the propagandistic claim of a so-called ‘malign Russian influence in BiH,’” the Embassy noted in its statement marking the Day of Remembrance for the victims of NATO aggression against Republika Srpska.
The statement emphasized that the NATO bombing exceeded the framework of international law, bypassed relevant UN Security Council resolutions, and became the first instance in history when NATO forces were used outside the alliance’s territory.
The first NATO strikes targeted the positions of the Army of Republika Srpska in the Sarajevo-Romanija region, with the justification being the explosion at the Markale market in Sarajevo on August 28, 1995.
Serbs were immediately accused of the massacre, even though international officials Yasushi Akashi and General Michael Rose stated that there was no evidence the shell had been fired from Serb positions.
Through Operation Deliberate Force against the people of Republika Srpska, NATO wrote shameful pages of its history between August 30 and September 14, 1995.
The outcome of 15 days of bombing was 46 killed soldiers, seven killed civilians, and 130 wounded civilians and soldiers.
The victims of contaminated bombs are difficult to count, and even those who had called for NATO intervention were not immune to its consequences.
The initiative to mark the Day of Remembrance for the victims of NATO bombing was launched in Andrićgrad on August 26, 2018, at the proposal of the News Agency of Republika Srpska (SRNA).
Source: RTRS
