Ilustrovana Politika
Belgrade, 15 May 1999
Slobodan Milosevic

Up to May 10, the War Air Forces, the Antiaircraft Defense of the land army and the Antiaircraft of the navy shot down around eighty fighter airplanes, some ten helicopters, as many unmanned spy aerial vehicles and more than two hundred cruise missiles.

The United States of America have so far admitted the loss of only four aircraft, but the NATO alliance has unwillingly and mostly indirectly confirmed the shooting down of some fifty fighter aircraft.

That the statements of the NATO spokesmen in Brussels how mostly all their aircraft come back after successful attacks on the Yugoslav Army are false prove also the reports of the Russian secret services and various agencies. According to this data, the Yugoslav Army shot down forty-four aggressor aircraft on April 20 alone.

Western analysts - especially those who put their profession before their ideology - explain that behind General Wesley Clark's repeated requests for new aircraft really stands that truth that too many aircraft, along with those shot down over the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, have been damaged and put out of fighting order along with their pilots. A hit aircraft must undergo a repairing process that lasts at least thirty days, and the pilot is put off fighting duty for more than a month. That is why Clark needs both replacement pilots and new aircraft.

Military experts also state that there are more and more NATO pilots who catapult themselves out of fear although they had not been hit. For the same reason they drop their cargoes of bombs and fire their missiles before reaching their goals. Aggressor pilots that had survived the antiaircraft fire of the Yugoslav Army refuse more and more to fly again, despite high daily wages ranging from eight to fifteen thousand dollars. It is said that the Norwegians abandoned the fighting ranks of the NATO with the explanation that they no longer wish to participate in genocide over a civil population.

The hiding of the truth and the destruction of media tools and technical equipment in Yugoslavia did not help the NATO evil doers and war criminals to hide the facts from the public. The information leaked from Western, but also Russian information sources that the Western alliance lost four helicopters type "Apache AN-64". One of the damaged came back to the Aviano base and two fell on the territory of Albania due to "technical malfunction". Everything implies that one of the latter two "Apaches" gave air support for the terrorists of the Kosovo Liberation Army not far from the Chafa Prusit border post, which were destroyed by the border patrol officers under the command of senior first class sergeant Goran Petrovic.

Western commentators, also citing sources close to those of the army, claim that the fighting unit of some thirty members of the Yugoslav Army ambushed and got hold of one of the "Apaches" as well as that the two-men crew did not resist.

The Western sources also claim that, in the war fields of Yugoslavia, the Americans lost two helicopters type UH-60G and two type CH-53/53G, which were on a mission to rescue the shot down pilots. In both these actions - as is confirmed by Russian information sources, too - the Americans have lost more than one hundred commandos and some ten pilots. The Russians even state that, on April 2, the Yugoslav Army shot down, some two hundred kilometers south of Belgrade, first a fighting aircraft, then both helicopters with fifty eight Special Forces members that had come to save the pilot.

The same sources also claim that the USA lost two F-117A aircraft and that one has been severely damaged. Also that, between March 24 and 26, the Germans and the British lost "Tornado IDS" aircraft and the pilots did not succeed in catapulting themselves. The Americans admitted that an A-10A aircraft went down on the territory of Macedonia, but they kept silent on the matter that another one of their aircraft of the same type, with the serial number A40662 and the code 77751 went down also.

The list of the shot down NATO steel vultures, according to the data confirmed in the West, also reads four F-04 aircraft (whose crews were either taken captive or killed), as well as five F-16C aircraft (of which a Yugoslav "Mig 29" shot down one, and the Antiaircraft Defense of the Yugoslav Army - the remaining four). Our "Mig 29" also shot down America's most modern fighting aircraft F-15E, while one American and one Canadian F/A-18 went down south of Ruma. Both crews were killed. The same was the fate of four "Harriers" and a few "Mirages", only at the hands of the navy and land Antiaircraft Defense of the Yugoslav Army.

Western military experts also speculate on the fact that Lieutenant General Dragoljub Ojdanic, head of the Chief Headquarters of the Yugoslav Army, while stating the enemies' losses, stated only those that had been, until now, documented with photographs and video recordings from the reachable locations, and that the others would be made public only when they too were supported by material facts.

The four aircraft destroyed over Nis during the bombing with cluster bombs on May 6 should also be added to this list of around eighty, admitted or not, but surely shot down aggressor fighting aircraft. One aircraft went down near Svrljig, another in Sicevac Gorge, the third in the district of the village Malc, and the fourth near Pirot. The torn off wing of one of them fell on the building of the Ministry of Internal Affaires in Nis. These four aircraft belonged to the squadron that had flown into the Yugoslav air space from Bulgaria near Kalna. One of the pilots, a Belgian, is said to have been taken captive as soon as he touched ground.