WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The NATO expansion policy the late Madeleine Albright pursued as the Clinton administration’s top diplomat fueled Russian security concerns to a level that forced Moscow to take defensive measures, which helped lead to the crisis in Ukraine, former Macedonian diplomat Risto Nikovski told Sputnik.

Albright, the first female US Secretary of State, died from cancer at the age of 84 on Wednesday. Albright was one of the key architects of NATO's 78-day bombing campaign in Yugoslavia, which was launched on March 24, 1999 - exactly 23 years ago.

"The foreign policy that Albright pursued together with Bill Clinton led to the encircling of Russia from all sides by new NATO members," Nikovski said. "That encirclement is de facto the reason for all the problems that started in Ukraine and will continue in Europe in the future as well as in the world."

In December, Russia sent the Biden administration security guarantee proposals in an effort to prevent NATO’s further enlargement. However, Moscow said the US largely ignored its most critical demands including a guarantee to never allow Ukraine into NATO.

Moscow, Nikovski added, was forced to undertake the special operation in Ukraine because the legitimate government was toppled with the help of the United States and others.

"New politicians were installed [in Kiev] to lead anti-Russian policies, which led to what we are seeing today," Nikovski said.

Albright’s role in US domestic politics was positive, he added, but the world, and particularly the Balkan region, will remember her for her aggressive and "anti-civilizational" policies. The role Albright played in the breaking away of Kosovo from Serbia showed the world that US foreign policy is unscrupulous, Nikovski said.

Years afterward, he added, Albright admitted that the bombing campaign was illegal, but also claimed it was useful.

The former diplomat said Albright’s role as US Secretary of State in expanding NATO deserves wholehearted and deep condemnation given that her predecessor, James Baker, told Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not expand an inch eastward after the reunification of Germany.

Nikovski served as Undersecretary in the Macedonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as Ambassador to Russia, Albania, and the United Kingdom before resigning over criticisms of the United States for allegedly interfering in the country’s internal affairs.

Albright moved from Czechoslovakia to the United States in 1948, where she would work as a professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and found the Albright Institute for Global Affairs at Wellesley College in addition to her public service.

READ MORE: https://sputniknews.com/20220324/albrights-nato-expansion-policy-paved-road-to-ukraine-crisis---ex-macedonian-diplomat-1094135207.html

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The Western alliance spent 78 days bombing Yugoslavia in 1999, contaminating the Balkan nation with at least 15 tonnes of highly toxic depleted uranium (DU) munitions. Serbian attorneys have filed multiple lawsuits against NATO, but have yet to receive any formal admission of wrongdoing by the alliance for its actions.

NATO has formally responded to lawsuits filed by Serbs with the Belgrade High Court over the bloc’s DU munitions use during the 1999 bombing campaign, claiming immunity from prosecution, Srdan Aleksic, a lawyer representing victims, has told Sputnik Serbia.

“In its statement to the court, NATO’s liaison office in Serbia indicated that the alliance has full immunity under Serbian jurisdiction on the basis of the 2005 agreement between the alliance and the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro ‘On the transit participation and support of peacekeeping operations,’ and the 2006 agreement under which the liaison office in Belgrade was created,” Aleksic said.

The attorney dismissed the ‘immunity’ claims, insisting that “none of these agreements gives immunity to NATO as an organization, and immunity cannot be applied retroactively. Therefore, NATO cannot receive immunity for war crimes against civilians and for its illegal aggression under the 2005 agreement."

"In our case about DU bombings resulting in casualties among the civilian population, soldiers and policemen, NATO carries responsibility for the violation of the right to life and for damages caused,” Aleksic stressed.

The attorney expects the Belgrade High Court to proceed with hearings on the matter in October.

Aleksic and Italian attorney Angelo Fiore Tartaglia filed a lawsuit against NATO over its use of depleted uranium in the 1999 attack on Yugoslavia in January 2021. Two additional lawsuits were filed earlier this year. Tartaglia had previously successfully represented nearly 200 Italian troops who died of cancer or became seriously ill after being exposed to DU while serving in Kosovo during NATO's 'peacekeeping' mission in that Serbian region.

The Belgrade District Court found US General Wesley Clark and NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana guilty of war crimes in September 2000 for the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia. However, the colour revolution that overthrew Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic in October 2000 led to a review of the verdict, and in late 2001, Serbia’s Supreme Court overturned the ruling.

Serbia suffers one of the highest cancer rates in Europe, with nearly 60,000 oncology patients diagnosed each year and the cancer rate among children up to 2.5 times above the European average. Serbian doctors are convinced that the high oncology rate is directly connected to the liberal use of DU munitions during the NATO bombing. Along with cancers, scientists have reported an alarming spike in infertility, autoimmune diseases and mental disorders over the past two decades, including post-traumatic stress and other psychological problems associated with the bombings.

Earlier this year, Serbian Institute of Radiology and Oncology director Dr. Danica Grujicic told Sputnik that the 1999 bombings had a devastating impact on the region's ecology and that the use of DU, combined with deliberate attacks on chemical plants and hazardous industrial facilities, created an environmental disaster affecting countries far beyond the borders of the former Yugoslavia.

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https://sputniknews.com/20220525/nato-claims-immunity-to-serbian-lawsuit-on-use-of-depleted-uranium-in-1999-bombings-1095778023.html

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BELGRADE — The Serbian Museum of Science and Technology in the heart of Belgrade, Serbia, long known for celebrating industrial and scientific milestones, has taken a bold leap into the future.

Where vintage power systems, early computing devices and a Tesla induction motor once stood as testaments to past innovation, holograms now shimmer in the air, casting their futuristic glow over the old.

A new exhibition titled Light of Friendship: 70th Anniversary of China-Serbia Friendship in Holography brings this unique fusion to life, inviting visitors to experience technology and art in brand new ways.

"I'm a frequent visitor here, and this is something completely new," says Sanjin, a Belgrade resident working in new media art.

"I've never seen holograms like this in person. My favorite part is the dark room with the glass sculptures. They're absolutely stunning."

Organized by the Serbian Museum of Science and Technology and the Holographic Arts Center of the Beijing Institute of Graphic Communication, the exhibition includes 70 holographic works, covering themes such as nature, environment and humanity. The series is displayed across the museum's permanent exhibition areas and a dedicated gallery space.

In one corner, a 123-year-old self-playing piano is paired with a holographic musical score. Nearby, a glowing portrait of Serbian-American scientist Nikola Tesla hovers beside a century-old generator.

In another room, Chinese cultural icons such as a Sanxingdui mask, a blue-and-white porcelain plate and the Big Snowflake torch from the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, float midair, etched by beams of light.

For visitors like Maya and Leila, students from the University of Belgrade, the exhibition has left a strong impression.

They say they have never seen holograms like these before, it is something new for Serbia, and it really shows the connection between their country and China, and they like it very much.

For Sanjin, the implications go far beyond art appreciation.

"China is so advanced in tech right now, and we don't yet have much of this here," he says.

"This has huge potential, not just culturally, but commercially too. I work in event production, and I can already imagine how many clients would want to use this kind of tech."

Wang Shuo, director of the Holographic Arts Center at the BIGC, says that "light "was chosen as the exhibition's theme to symbolize the enduring connection between China and Serbia — reflected in the artworks' integration of both cultures, the collaboration behind the exhibition and the promise of future exchanges.

"The exhibition is filled with passion and creativity. There's an invisible spirit behind this kind of cooperation. Just like holography — when a beam of light shines on it, energy bursts forth," says Wang.

The museum's director, Zoran Levic, describes the event as a landmark moment.

"It's the first time Serbian visitors are seeing and interacting with holographic artworks.

"Our museum is known for showcasing old technology. So this meeting of old and new is very special," adds Levic.

"To predict the future, you must first know the past. The past is here, and the future is hanging on the walls."

Xinhua

https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202505/06/WS68195b7ca310a04af22bd929.html

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

August 4, 2025 marks the 30th anniversary of Operation Storm. Little known outside the former Yugoslavia, the military campaign unleashed a genocidal cataclysm that violently expelled Croatia’s entire Serb population. Dubbed “the most efficient ethnic cleansing we’ve seen in the Balkans” by Swedish politician Carl Bildt, Croat forces rampaged UN-protected areas of the self-declared Serb Republic of Krajina, looting, burning, raping and murdering their way across the province. Up to 350,000 locals fled, many on foot, never to return. Meanwhile, thousands were summarily executed.

As these hideous scenes unfolded, UN peacekeepers charged with protecting Krajina watched without intervening. Meanwhile, US officials strenuously denied the horrifying massacres and mass displacement amounted to ethnic cleansing, let alone war crimes. NATO member state governments were far more interested in the “sophistication” of Zagreb’s military tactics. One British colonel heading a UN observer mission in the area gushed, “whoever wrote that plan of attack could have gone to any NATO staff college in North America or Western Europe and scored an A-plus.”

Widely overlooked documents reviewed by The Grayzone help explain why Croatian forces were graded so highly: Operation Storm was for all intents and purposes a NATO attack, carried out by soldiers armed and trained by the US and directly coordinated with other Western powers. Despite publicly endorsing a negotiated peace, Washington privately encouraged Zagreb to employ maximum belligerence, even as their ultranationalist Croat proxies plotted to strike with such ferocity that the country’s entire Serb population would “to all practical purposes disappear.”

In the midst of talks on a political settlement in Geneva, high-ranking Croat officials privately discussed methods to justify their coming blitzkrieg, including false flag attacks. Assured of their Western patrons’ continued backing amid the bloodshed, Croat leaders boasted that they merely needed to inform their NATO backers in advance of their plans. Once the dust settled and Croatia’s Serb population was entirely cleansed, Croat officials met in secret with US officials to celebrate their “triumph.”

Richard Holbrooke, a veteran US diplomat then serving as Assistant Secretary of State in the Bill Clinton administration, told the president of Croatia that while the US “said publicly… that we were concerned” about the situation, “privately, you knew what we wanted.” As one of Holbrooke’s aides wrote in a note the diplomat later reproduced, Croatian forces had been “hired” as Washington’s “junkyard dogs” to destroy Yugoslavia.

After expelling the local Serb population, the newly-formed Croat regime could be counted on to exert US dominance not only over the Balkans, but Europe more widely. The ethnic tensions fomented by NATO in the region still simmer, and have been exploited to justify perpetual occupation.

The former Yugoslavia remains horribly scarred by Operation Storm. From NATO’s perspective, however, the military campaign provided a blueprint for subsequent proxy conflicts and military strikes. Washington has recreated the strategy of weaponizing extremist foreign fighters as shock troops in an array of theaters, from Syria to Ukraine.

Throughout the 1980s, Western powers – in particular Britain, Germany, and the US – covertly sponsored the growth of nationalism in Yugoslavia, hoping to encourage the multiethnic federation’s breakup. Their chosen proxy in Croatia, Franjo Tudjman, was a fanatical ethnonationalist, outspoken Holocaust denier, Catholic fundamentalist, and alumni of secessionist extremist groups. These factions embarked on a terrorist rampage throughout the early 1970’s, hijacking and blowing up airliners, attacking Yugoslav diplomatic sites abroad, and in 1971 assassinating Vladimir Rolovic, Belgrade’s ambassador to Sweden.

Following an upsurge of Croatian separatist violence in Yugoslavia, Tudjman was jailed in March 1972 along with his close confederate Stepjan Mesic due to their ultranationalist views. When Zagreb held its first multi-party elections since World War II 18 years later, the pair’s Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) won a plurality of votes, and a majority of parliamentary seats. In the process, Tudjman became President, and Mesic Prime Minister. As Croatian nationalism soared, Serbs were purged en masse from state agencies.

On the campaign trail, Tudjman eagerly venerated the “Independent State of Croatia,” a Nazi-created puppet entity savagely run by local collaborators from April 1941 to May 1945, describing the fascistic construct as “an expression of the historical aspirations of the Croatian people.” Elsewhere, he openly remarked, “thank God, my wife is neither a Serb nor a Jew.” 

These utterances reflected a monstrous strategy Tudjman laid out in February 1990 at a public meeting in Cleveland, Ohio, for when HDZ took power:

“[Our] basic goal… is to separate Croatia from Yugoslavia,” Tudjman explained. “If we come to power, then in the first 48 hours, while there is still euphoria, it is indispensable that we settle scores with all those who are against Croatia.”

“Lists of such persons have already been drawn up,” he continued. “Serbs in Croatia should be declared citizens of Croatia and called Orthodox Croats. The name ‘Orthodox Serb’ will be banned. The Serbian Orthodox Church will be abolished… it will be declared Croatian for those who do not move to Serbia.”

Many of Tudjman’s adherents adulated the Ustase, hardcore fascists who ruled the “Independent State of Croatia” during World War II. Their crimes ranged from executing women and the elderly by the hundred through methods including beheading, drowning. Meanwhile, the Ustase managed a network of death camps across Axis-occupied Yugoslavia, with dedicated units for children. Their ruthless barbarity towards Jews, Roma, and Serbs repulsed even their Nazi patrons. Hundreds of thousands were murdered by the Ustase, whose officer corps included the brother and father of Tudjman’s Defense Minister, Gojko Šušak. 

These horrific events remained visceral for residents of the historic Serbian territory of Krajina, which was administratively assigned to the Yugoslav socialist republic of Croatia following World War II. HDZ received funding from Ustase exiles in Western countries, and immediately upon taking office renamed Zagreb’s iconic Square of the Victims of Fascism as Croatian Nobles Square, while Croat paramilitary units proudly touted Ustase chants and symbols. As the Tudjman-led government openly fanned the flames of ethnic hatred, Serbs in the fledgling country began preparing for civil war.

After interethnic fighting broke out in Croatia in March 1991, Yugoslav People’s Army units were deployed to guard Krajina, where residents declared the establishment of an autonomous Serb Republic until an international peacekeeping deal could be brokered. Yugoslavia’s then-President Borislav Jovic testified before his death the objective was “to protect the Serb territories, until a political solution [could be] found.”

In August 1995, that “political solution” appeared on the brink of fruition. A dedicated UN Contact Group was conducting peace negotiations in Geneva between Krajina authorities and Zagreb. A proposal intended to bring the Croatian conflict to an end, known as Zagreb 4 or Z-4, was drafted by the EU, Russia, and the US. Washington’s ambassador to Zagreb, Peter Galbraith, played a key role in negotiating terms with Krajina-Serb leaders. 

Accepted on August 3rd 1995, Z-4 envisioned Serb-majority areas in Croatia remaining part of the country, albeit with a degree of autonomy. That same day, Galbraith confirmed on local TV that “reintegration of the Serb-held areas in Croatia” had been agreed upon. Meanwhile, US mediators in Geneva declared that due to major Serb concessions, there was “no reason for Croatia to go to war.” At long last, the stage was finally set for a negotiated peace.

Upbeat Krajina-Serb officials announced they’d received assurances from Washington that it would intervene to prevent Croatian military action against Krajina if they complied with Z-4’s terms. Yet, before the day was over, Croatian officials rejected Z-4, walking out of negotiations. Operation Storm began the next morning.

Now, documents reviewed by The Grayzone reveal that Tudjman never had any intention of securing peace at the conference.

Instead, the files shows that Croatia’s participation in Geneva was a ruse intended to create the illusion Zagreb was seeking a diplomatic settlement, while it secretly crafted plans for “completely [vanquishing] the enemy.” The scheme was revealed in the minutes from a July 31, 1995 meeting between Tudjman and his top military brass at the presidential palace on the Brionian Islands. During the conversation, Tudjman informed those assembled: “We have to inflict such blows that the Serbs will to all practical purposes disappear.”

“I am going to Geneva to hide this and not to talk… I want to hide what we are preparing for the day after. And we can rebut any argument in the world about how we didn’t want to talk.”

uch statements, which constitute clear and unambiguous evidence of genocidal intent, were not limited to the President. The inevitability of ethnic cleansing was admitted by Ante Gotovina, a senior general who returned to Yugoslavia to lead operation Storm after fleeing in the early 1970s. a decisive and sustained attack on Krajina would mean that afterwards, “there won’t be so many civilians, just those who have to stay, who have no possibility of leaving,” said Gotovina. The former French foreign legion commander, who was once employed as security for France’s far-right Jean-Marie Le Pen and worked as a strikebreaker cracking down on CGT union workers, would later be acquitted for his leading role in Operation Storm by a Western-dominated international tribunal.

For those Serbs who were now trapped in a hostile ethnic enclave, Tudjman suggested a mass propaganda campaign targeting them with leaflets declaring “the victory of the Croatian Army supported by the international community,” and calling on Serbs not to flee – in an apparent attempt to lend an inclusive veneer to their proposal to forcibly displace the civilian population. “This means giving them a way out, while pretending [emphasis added] to guarantee civil rights… Use radio and television, but leaflets as well.”

The generals discussed other propaganda efforts to justify the impending attack, including false flags. Given that “every military operation must have its political justification,” Tudjman said the Serbs “should provide us with a pretext and provoke us” before the strike began. One official proposed, “we accuse them of having launched a sabotage attack against us… that’s why we were forced to intervene.” Another general suggested carrying out “an explosion as if they had struck with their airforce.”

In late 1990, Yugoslav intelligence secretly filmed Croatia’s Defense Minister Martin Spegelj covertly plotting to purge the republic’s Serb population. In one tape, he told a fellow official that anyone opposed to Zagreb’s independence should be murdered “on the spot, in the street, in the compound, in barracks, anywhere” via “[a] pistol…into the stomach.” He forecast “a civil war in which there is no mercy towards anyone, women or children,” and Serb “family homes” were dealt with using “quite simply grenades.”

Spegelj went on to openly advocate “slaughter” to “resolve” the issue of Knin, Krajina’s capital, making the city “disappear.” He boasted, “we have international recognition for that.” The US had already “offered us all possible assistance,” including “thousands of combat vehicles” and “complete arming” of 100,000 Croat soldiers “free of charge.” The desired end result? “Serbs in Croatia will never be there again.” Spegelj concluded, “we are going to create a state at all costs, if necessary, at the cost of shedding blood.”

Western support for the horrors planned and perpetrated during Operation Storm was also writ large during the meeting on July 31, 1995. There, Tudjman told his generals, “we have a friend, Germany, which consistently supports us.” The Croats just had to “inform them ahead of time” of their objectives. “In NATO as well there is also understanding of our views,” he explained, adding, “we enjoy the sympathy of the US.” In 2006, German outlet Der Spiegel confirmed that the massacres bore Washington’s fingerprints, citing Croatian military sources who claimed they’d enjoyed “direct though secret support from both the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency in planning and carrying out the ‘Storm’ offensive.”

“In preparing for the offensive, Croatian soldiers were trained at Fort Irwin in California and the Pentagon aided in planning the operation,” the outlet reported. US support went far beyond what it publicly acknowledged, which was that Croatian forces merely underwent training exercises carried out by US private military contractor MPRI, Spiegel revealed. “Immediately prior to the offensive, then-Deputy CIA Director George Tenet met with Gotovina and Tudjman’s son – then in charge of Croatian intelligence – for last minute consultations. During the operation, US aircraft destroyed Serbian communication and anti-aircraft centers and the Pentagon passed on information gathered by satellite to [Croatian forces].”

At an August 7 1995 cabinet meeting, Tudjman bragged of how Washington “must have been pleased” with how Croatia’s military executed Operation Storm. His premier, Ivo Sanader, then discussed coordinating the effort with US officials, who “worked in the name of” Vice President Al Gore. He assured those gathered that “all clearance… was approved straight” by US President Bill Clinton, and that Croatia could therefore “expect continuous support” from Washington as the massacres unfolded.

On August 18, a high-level summit with senior US diplomat Richard Holbrooke was convened in Zagreb’s Presidential palace. A fixture of the intervention-obsessed Beltway foreign policy establishment, Holbrooke had his eyes on plum appointments under Bill Clinton and beyond – perhaps under a future Hillary Clinton administration. The successful dismantling of Yugoslavia would provide fuel for his ambitions.

In a transcript reviewed by The Grayzone, Holbrooke fawningly described Tudjman as the “father of modern Croatia” and its “liberator” and “creator.” Noting with approval that the strongman had “regained 98 percent of your territory” – without mentioning that it had been purged of Serbs – the American diplomat described himself as “a friend” of the newly-independent state, whose violent conduct he framed as legitimate.

“You had justification for your military action in Eastern Slavonia,” Holbrooke informed Tudjman, “and I defended it, always, in Washington.” When some in the US suggested reining in Zagreb, Holbrooke argued Croats should “continue” anyway, he declared.

Regarding Operation Storm, Holbrooke admitted, “we said publicly, as you know, that we were concerned, but privately, you knew what we wanted.” He dubbed the horrifying blitzkrieg a “triumph” from “a political and military point of view,” which left refugees as “the only problem” from Zagreb’s perspective. Effectively stage-managing the Croatian president, Holbrooke advised Tudjman to “give a speech stating that the war has finished and that [Serbs] should return.” While forecasting “the majority would not return,” Holbrooke apparently felt it important to at least leave the offer open publicly.

Croatian authorities dealt with this “problem” by passing discriminatory laws making it virtually impossible for displaced Serbs to return, while seizing their property. Despite possessing overwhelming evidence of grave war crimes, the NATO-funded International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia did not indict anyone responsible for Operation Storm until 2008. Many culpable officials, including Tudjman, died in the intervening time. Three surviving military commanders were eventually prosecuted in 2011. One was acquitted and two convicted, although this was overturned on appeal in 2012.

That ruling reached several other extraordinary conclusions. While accepting “discriminatory and restrictive measures” were employed by Zagreb to prevent displaced Serbs from returning, this did not mean their departure was forced. Although civilians had been murdered in large numbers, including the elderly and infirm who couldn’t flee, Operation Storm somehow didn’t deliberately target non-combatants. And despite the explicitly stated desire of Spegelj and Tudjman to make Serbs “disappear,” neither government nor military officials were found to have specifically intended to expel Croatia’s entire Serb minority.

The anniversary of Operation Storm is now celebrated as ‘Victory Day’ in Croatia. The attack’s success is venerated in Western military circles today, and the effort may have influenced similar operations in other theaters of proxy conflict. In September 2022, the Kyiv Post cheered Ukraine’s unexpectedly successful counteroffensive in Kharkov as “Operation Storm 2.0,” suggesting it was a harbinger of Russia’s impending “capitulation.” 

Almost three years later, Kiev’s forces are collapsing throughout the Donbass. Unlike in Croatia, the latest crop of ultranationalist US proxies appear unlikely to prevail.

https://thegrayzone.com/2025/08/04/us-ethnic-cleansing-serbs-croat/

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.