One of the most frequent pro-Russian, Serbian national-revisionist, and anti-Western sources of disinformation and manipulation has been the 1999 NATO use of ammunition with depleted uranium. Even though numerous relevant sources confirmed the finding that ‘exposures of the general population to depleted uranium from environmental sources after military uses are very low1,’ that did not prevent Serbian and Russian government officials, along with numerous GONGO-affiliated public individuals, from disputing these findings.
For the 26th anniversary of the NATO bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), the video example below features a known pro-Putin, Russian, anti-Western propagandist, Danica Grujičić (b. 1959), together with oncologist Vladimir Kovčin (b. 1957), claiming that NATO bombed the FRY for ‘experimental’ reasons:
Bojan Radak, a research professor affiliated with the Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences in Belgrade, argued well against the ‘experimental’ disinformation claim, although he did call the 1999 NATO campaign a ‘criminal act’ while remaining silent on the fact that the bombing did not happen without cause but occurred only after the Serbian Slobodan Milošević regime violated four UN Security Council resolutions regarding the indiscriminate use of violence against civilians in Kosovo during the 1998–1999 conflict2:
- 1) Institut za javno zdravlje Srbije Milan Jovanovic Batut:
“Zdavlje stanovnika Srbije: analiticka studija 1997-2007,” Batut, 2008, http://www.batut.org.rs/download/publikacije/Zdravlje%20stanovnika%201997-2007.pdf
2) The Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER):
Sriram Gopal, Nicole Deller, “Precision Bombing, Widespread Harm: Two Case Studies of the Bombings of Industrial Facilities at Pancevo and Kragujevac During Operation Allied Force, Yugoslavia 1999,” IEER, Nov. 2002, https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/BD0C292CAB9B6018C1256C7E00566161-ieer-yug-05nov.pdf
3) UN study: “The Kosovo Conflict: Consequences for the Environment & Human Settlements”, UNEP, UNCHS, 1999, https://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/finalreport.pdf
4) UN study: “Depleted Uranium in Serbia/Montenegro Post-Conflict Environmental Assessment,” UNEP, 2002, https://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/duserbiamont.pdf.
5) UN study: “From Conflict to Sustainable Development: Assessment of Environmental Hot Spots Serbia and Montenegro,” UNEP, Apr. 2004, https://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/assessment.pdf. ↩︎ - See UN Security Council resolutions 1160, 1199, 1203 i 1239, https://main.un.org/securitycouncil/en/content/resolutions-0 ↩︎