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Nearly two years ago, while the world watched the adventures of Russian paratroopers (forgotten without food and fuel at the airfield in Pristina) and while Russian generals nearly became hoarse from screaming at NATO generals over which Zone of Responsibility is best in Kosovo, tiny Finland practically blew its top.
Finnish President Ahtisaari, who did a lot towards finding a peace agreement, officially stated that the ecological situation in Kosovo was so dangerous that there would be no Finnish soldiers in the peacekeeping force (KFOR).
In NATO headquarters they preferred not to take notice of this statement. Especially because right after the NATO troops moved into Kosovo, there came a group of people only armed with calculators. Official representatives of UNEP (United Nations Environmental Program) were counting the damage made and also checking what was the result of the bombing. According to their account, after the 81 sites were destroyed it was only possible to talk about the oil and chemical contamination. Since the world already knew how to fight such pollutants. The only question was how much money was needed to clean it up. In reaction to all the questions about radioactive contamination UN officials preferred to reply with the answer "it's only speculation".
Russian military representatives consider that the ignorance of UNEP members can be explained simply. Neither the US nor other NATO member states were willing to present information about the weapons used during the bombing campaign.
"For almost three months during the war, NATO made only one major mistake. When a damaged bomber, trying to return to the airbase at Aviano, was forced to drop two bombs into an Italian lake", said an officer of the Chief Directorate of the Russian Ministry of Defense (who asked to remain anonymous). "At that time, the official representative of NATO, Jamie Shea, had to say that those bombs contained some Uranium. But that incident was quickly hushed up. And we didn't learn anything about the components of the bombs and missiles which were 'accidentally' dropped on Macedonia and Bulgaria."
NATO prefers to call the damage made by those accidental missiles, as well as the losses among the civilian population, as a side effect of the bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. But in the Russian Ministry of Defense, officers are sure that the real effect of the bombing was much more serious and will become apparent some years in the future. According to the Russian account, during the NATO war in Yugoslavia, territories within the Balkans were contaminated with no less than 30 tonnes of Uranium.
"In Russian, as well as American Armies, Uranium is used as a main component of aircraft bombs and armor piercing shells. In Russia, the first tests were made in 1978. Back then, on a test site of the Chief Directorate of the Rocket and Artillery troops of the Soviet Army were tested the first anti-tank Depleted Uranium shells. The thing is, Uranium is the cheapest and the most effective [in military terms] of heavy metals. While it burns it can burn through tank armor, penetrate levels of buildings and destroy entire airstrips. The Americans began to use it in the mid-seventies and, from our information, shells with Uranium components now comprise nearly half the entire arms of the US army. After the Gulf War, for example, the Pentagon was compelled to officially recognize that on the territory of Iraq there were 31 tonnes of uranium. That's from anti-tank and aerial bombs. But from the beginning of the nineties, the US army didn't seriously upgrade their weapons. Therefore we have every reason to believe that in Yugoslavia the same weapons were used [as in the Gulf War]. The Russian military count, based on simple arithmetic, is that during the war in the Balkans NATO planes made more than 60,000 flights and the evidence of destruction shows you where and how weapons with Uranium components were used," the Defense Ministry source said.
"It's known that in Yugoslavia four main types of ammo were used. For punching through buildings- remember the television building in Belgrade- they used six meter long bombs. As a matter of fact, the bombs are a Uranium rod in a metal cover. Inside, there is about a hundred Kilograms of Uranium 238. For an attack on armored vehicles NATO used shells with Uranium weighing in at around 3.2 kilograms. Runway bombs contain pieces of Uranium in excess of 600 kg, which scatters out and burns holes ten square meters wide. So only balloons can lift from such an airstrip. And finally, in air combat they used a charge that weighs about 500 grams. In every clip in the plane's gun, every fifth shell was one such shell. After it is shot, it extends like a ruler and, rotating, it cuts through the wings or whatever in the enemy's plane. But it happens only if this device hits the target. Even NATO pilots, I'm afraid, don't know how many times they missed. So, [for example] if we take a minimum of one thousand flights with weapons containing Uranium onboard and consider that every bomb contains an average of thirty kilograms of Uranium 238 we can quit simply count the results of these bombings."
But none of the specialists, so far, can really tell how big is the threat of radioactive contamination. The Serbian government simply doesn't have the necessary equipment to take the samples of ground and water. Not to mention, that the most simple analysis costs around $1,000. And NATO doesn't want to admit that Albanian refugees have returned to the contaminated areas.
"To understand what 30 tonnes of Uranium 238 means, you have to know that the biggest Russian nuclear reactor, VVR-1000, contains only 60 tonnes and if you start to do a little chemistry and separate weapons grade Uranium 235 from this amount the result is the equivalent of two nuclear warheads (which is the standard for one airborne bomb). Therefore you can consider this however you prefer, on the territory of Yugoslavia there was a meltdown from an entire atomic reactor or one nuclear bomb was burnt."
It is hard to evaluate the true effect of the bombings. If the air-to-air fights were conducted along the borders of Yugoslavia on a length of ten to twelve thousand meters, then the Uranium 'rulers' could have flown all over the Balkans. The bombings of the runways led to local contamination but some airbombs literally went underground (as far as three meters) so now it is virtually impossible to find them. It is possible that those un-exploded bombs got into water supplies (which were also targets for NATO aircraft). As a result, all of Yugoslavia (including Kosovo) which was 'filtered' through depleted Uranium. The same thing happened to the anti-tank missiles in Kosovo. It's well known that the Serbian army put up a lot of dummy tanks. According to the Russian account, under every second dummy tank lies an unexploded Maverick missile [many of which contained Uranium elements].
One last thing, after an air bomb is dropped a cloud consisting of Uranium dust can fly up to the height of one kilometer. And no one knows where these clouds ended up. At least all the attempts of Russian military observers to monitor the movement of radioactive clouds didn't bring any results.
Russian meteorological stations are located at a distance of at least one hundred kilometers from one another. Therefore, a radioactive cloud has to pass almost directly overhead in order for it to be detected. Russian military satellites are not set up to detect such information. And the few attempts by environmental activists in Macedonian who tried to announce that radioactivity had increased after the bombing campaign were, surprisingly, hushed up quick.
So far, Yugoslavian authorities have refused offers by the Russian ministry of Defense to let specialists groups into the region in order to determine the real level of radioactive contamination. The only thing Russians have achieved is that a group of observers from the Russian Ministry of Emergencies finally did go to Serbia. Right now they are monitoring the movement of oil slicks on the Danube.
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