NATO’s attacks on Yugoslavia 24 years ago caused the death of international law, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said in a speech Friday at a memorial event in the city of Sobor, where the first bomb fell in 1999.

“24 years ago, modern international law died, and you should know that this is not a trivial bureaucratic formulation, but something much more,” Vucic said.

“Nothing worse could happen in the world than what happened here, in a small country that was found guilty just because it sought to make its own decisions and be free. Therefore, he did not address the forces that destroyed the old international order in 1989/90 and created a new one in which only they have the final say on everything,” the Serbian president said.

Vucic addressed a crowd gathered in St. George’s Square in the town of Sobor, waving Serbian flags and lighting candles in memory of the victims of NATO bombing.

The bombing of Yugoslavia began on March 24, 1999, without prior UN Security Council approval.

In the 78 days of the NATO pounding, thousands of Serbs died (soldiers, police and civilians), while the country’s infrastructure suffered incalculable damage.

Among the munitions used in the airstrikes were depleted uranium rockets and cluster bombs. Houses, schools and hospitals were not spared from NATO’s “smart” bombs. The buildings of the Chinese embassy and the Serbian Radio and Television (RTS) were also hit.

The president of Serbia did not fail to refer to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, characterizing the West’s attitude as “hypocritical and two-faced”, explaining that today he supports the territorial integrity of Ukraine by citing the Charter of the United Nations, which he did not take into account in 1999 .