10.06.2019
Minister Vulin: The most difficult moment in our history
“The year 1999 was perhaps the darkest and most difficult time of our history. It has never been in our history that we were so alone. Even those peoples and countries who are our friends were far away, led by political elites who felt that the bombing of Serbia and the Federal Republic Yugoslavia was a small sacrifice for the big world that was offered to them. In 1999, we were completely alone, only with our people”, Defence Minister Aleksandar Vulin has said today opening the International Conference entitled “Defence against the NATO aggression – 20 years later” at the Guard Club in the Topčider barracks.
According to him, the military and the people showed incredible resistance, courage and skill that could not have been foreseen, adding that the Serbs had had a difficult period after the NATO aggression.
- It was a period in which we were asked to deny ourselves, to forget and to give up our warriors, to forget the essence and meaning of our struggle. The period in which we were asked to accept to be blamed for someone else's crimes, to be ashamed because of the crimes of others and to accept them as our own. There can be neither an army nor a state that does not have self-respect, that cannot rely on those who were before them. An army that has no morale, strength, memory, and repetition cannot be a victorious army. And the famous tactic of our army, the famous 4M – mobility, manoeuvre, masking and morale. Morale above all. NATO was not stopped to go on ground intervention by our materiel, it was not stopped by our supremacy, but it was stopped by the awareness that the army and the people will defend themselves. After all, in a war that you have not chosen, in a war that you cannot either start or finish, what else remains but to defend yourself and defend yourself persistently, decisively and securely, Minister Vulin concluded.
The participants in the Conference, attended by Chief of General Staff of the Serbian Armed Forces, Lieutenant General Milan Mojsilović, were also addressed by Rector of the University of Defence, Lieutenant General Goran Radovanović, who pointed out that today's conference is of great importance for the defence system and the wider social community, adding that the papers of all participants will be published in the Book of Proceedings “because we will not allow the facts and truth based on them, concerning this act of brutality and violation of international law, to exists somewhere in the zone of a wide area of individual memories”.
Besides the hosts, the Conference, organised by the University of Defence of the Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Serbia, included representatives of the Russian Federation, the People's Republic of China, Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republic of Belarus.
Topics addressed at the conference are political, legal, economic and environmental consequences of NATO aggression, security and military-strategic implications, and operational-tactical experience in defence against NATO aggression.
According to him, the military and the people showed incredible resistance, courage and skill that could not have been foreseen, adding that the Serbs had had a difficult period after the NATO aggression.
- It was a period in which we were asked to deny ourselves, to forget and to give up our warriors, to forget the essence and meaning of our struggle. The period in which we were asked to accept to be blamed for someone else's crimes, to be ashamed because of the crimes of others and to accept them as our own. There can be neither an army nor a state that does not have self-respect, that cannot rely on those who were before them. An army that has no morale, strength, memory, and repetition cannot be a victorious army. And the famous tactic of our army, the famous 4M – mobility, manoeuvre, masking and morale. Morale above all. NATO was not stopped to go on ground intervention by our materiel, it was not stopped by our supremacy, but it was stopped by the awareness that the army and the people will defend themselves. After all, in a war that you have not chosen, in a war that you cannot either start or finish, what else remains but to defend yourself and defend yourself persistently, decisively and securely, Minister Vulin concluded.
The participants in the Conference, attended by Chief of General Staff of the Serbian Armed Forces, Lieutenant General Milan Mojsilović, were also addressed by Rector of the University of Defence, Lieutenant General Goran Radovanović, who pointed out that today's conference is of great importance for the defence system and the wider social community, adding that the papers of all participants will be published in the Book of Proceedings “because we will not allow the facts and truth based on them, concerning this act of brutality and violation of international law, to exists somewhere in the zone of a wide area of individual memories”.
Besides the hosts, the Conference, organised by the University of Defence of the Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Serbia, included representatives of the Russian Federation, the People's Republic of China, Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republic of Belarus.
Topics addressed at the conference are political, legal, economic and environmental consequences of NATO aggression, security and military-strategic implications, and operational-tactical experience in defence against NATO aggression.
