NATO dropped 10,000 tonnes of explosives on Yugoslavia, Nebenzia recalled
During the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, NATO countries dropped more than ten thousand tonnes of explosives on the country, or 5 times more power in TNT equivalent than an atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1949 – as stated by the Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Vassily Nebenzia, at a UN General Assembly meeting, RIA Novosti reports
“A month has passed since the beginning of a special military operation in Ukraine. But there is another anniversary: on March 24th, 1999, the United States and its NATO allies launched an armed aggression against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia which lasted 78 days and nights," Mr. Nebenzia noted, adding that the Alliance forces made more than 35,000 combat sorties, fired about 3,000 cruise missiles and dropped more than 10,000 tonnes of explosives. “In TNT equivalent, that was 5 times more than the power of an atomic bomb dropped by the US military on Hiroshima in 1949. As a result of the bombing, more than 2,000 Serbs were killed, including children, women and the elderly," the Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations noted.
Later, as Mr. Nebenzia said, these people were cynically named ‘collateral damage’. “Thousands of civilian objects in dozens of cities were destroyed, while the autonomous province of Kosovo was forcibly torn away from the country. The 1999 NATO aggression against Yugoslavia was the first armed attack in Europe on a sovereign state after 1945. This ‘purely defensive NATO bloc’ – as they call themselves – made such a tragic contribution to the European history,” Mr. Nebenzia concluded.
