Twenty-five years later, Serbia is still haunted by NATO bombings – liberation

In Belgrade, the memory and scars of the Atlantic Alliance strikes that began in March 1999 still linger. The conflict in Ukraine, led by the ultranationalist Vucic, has renewed anti-Western sentiment.

On the evening of March 24, 1999, Ludmila and Tejan had their first meeting in Kalemegdan Park in the heart of Belgrade. But young lovers who are active in the alternative scene do not have time to enjoy the view of the confluence of the Danube and the Sava River. “When we arrived, that was it The bombing beganWith lightning and anti-aircraft fire, recalled Ljudmila Stratimirovic, pointing in the distance west of the Serbian capital. We didn't follow the news so we thought it was fireworks and we thought it was very romantic. When we took shelter in my house, my brother confirmed to us that the NATO attacks had started.

In early 1999, a war was raging in Kosovo between the Yugoslav Army and the Albanian Independence Guerrillas (UCK). Three years after the end of the conflicts in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, Westerners fear that the Slobodan Milosevic regime will unleash a new campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Albanian Kosovars (the Kosovo War killed 13,000 people, including some 11,000 Kosovar Albanians). Serbian president refuses US ultimatum, and