Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić’s remarks at the UN General Assembly about the 1999 NATO intervention in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia have drawn criticism from political analyst Jasmin Mujanović and U.S. professor Daniel Serwer, who pointed to Serbia’s role in the conflicts of the 1990s and the documented links between Belgrade and Bosnian Serb military structures.
Speaking at the General Assembly, Vučić referred to the NATO bombing campaign and argued that Serbia had been attacked despite, in his account, no Serbian soldier or police officer having entered the territory of another state.
“No Serbian soldier or police officer had set foot on the territory of another state, yet the decision was made to bomb Serbia,” Vučić said.
Mujanović challenged that characterization, placing the 1999 Kosovo conflict in the broader context of the wars fought during the rule of Slobodan Milošević.
“By the time Milošević’s forces began their campaign in Kosovo, this was his fourth war in less than nine years,” Mujanović said. He argued that the NATO intervention should be viewed against the backdrop of the conflicts that had already taken place across the former Yugoslavia.
Serwer, meanwhile, disputed Vučić’s broader suggestion that Belgrade had not been directly involved in the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In a post on his Peacefare platform, he specifically referred to former Bosnian Serb Army commander Ratko Mladić.
“This is a serious lie,” Serwer wrote, pointing to Mladić’s inclusion on the payroll of the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA), along with other officers who served in the Army of Republika Srpska.
The financial and institutional relationship between Belgrade and Bosnian Serb military structures has also been examined in proceedings before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Human Rights Watch, in its review of evidence presented during the trial of Slobodan Milošević, reported that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia continued to finance the salaries of former JNA officers serving in the Army of Republika Srpska.
Mladić was later convicted by the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals and sentenced to life imprisonment for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
NATO’s stated rationale for the 1999 intervention
NATO’s official statements from 1999 described the Kosovo crisis differently from the account presented by Vučić.
In April 1999, NATO said the crisis was the culmination of what it described as a policy of oppression, ethnic cleansing and violence pursued by the Milošević government. The Alliance called for an end to violence and repression in Kosovo and the withdrawal of Yugoslav military, police and paramilitary forces from the territory.
NATO also cited the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Kosovo Albanians and said its military campaign was aimed at stopping the violence and enabling refugees and displaced people to return to their homes.
The Alliance’s subsequent statements referred to evidence of systematic persecution and atrocities committed by Yugoslav and Serbian forces in Kosovo. NATO said the June 1999 withdrawal of Yugoslav and Serbian security forces brought the campaign of repression and ethnic cleansing to an end.
Following the withdrawal, an international security presence led by NATO entered Kosovo under the framework established by UN Security Council Resolution 1244.
The exchange at the UN reflects continuing disagreements over the interpretation of the wars of the 1990s, Serbia’s role in conflicts outside its borders and the circumstances surrounding NATO’s 1999 intervention in Kosovo.
