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MOSCOW, Oct 27, 1999 -- A top Russian general said in an interview published on Wednesday that the NATO-dominated international peacekeeping force in Kosovo was failing in its mission to make the Yugoslav province safe for all residents.
Russia participates in the KFOR force, which entered Kosovo in June after 11 weeks of NATO air strikes on Yugoslavia to stop its repression of Kosovo's majority ethnic Albanians. Moscow strongly opposed the bombing campaign.
But in an interview with the Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star) military daily, Colonel-General Leonid Ivashov, the army's foreign policy chief, said KFOR's Western leaders had left Serbs at the mercy of ethnic Albanian guerrillas in the province.
"More than 80 percent of Serbs fled the region from the moment KFOR entered, hundreds have died at the hands of Albanian terrorists, 450 people have been kidnapped and more than 5,000 Serb apartments seized by militants," he said.
He accused the West of allowing the former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) to set up "veiled military structures". Western countries were also funding "separatists" in other parts of Yugoslavia, he said.
"One can come to the conclusion that the hopes of the world community - including Russia - in the activities of KFOR have not been justified."
KFOR officers say ethnically motivated violence has markedly diminished in Kosovo since the peacekeepers arrived. But still, four months later, hardly a day passes without ethnic Albanian revenge attacks on minority Serbs in the province.
NATO Secretary General George Robertson himself warned Kosovo Albanians during a visit last week that NATO would not stand by and watch them drive Serbs out of the territory, jeopardizing an international reconstruction effort.