-Caveat Lector-
http://www.sightings.com/politics4/sec.htm
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SIGHTINGS
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Russians Raced To Pristina Underground Airport Secrets
By Tom Walker
At Slatina Airfield, Pristina
www.lineone.net/times
7-19-99
RUSSIA'S initial dash to Kosovo may have had less to do with
politics than with the protection of military secrets in
underground hangars at Pristina's Slatina airport, it was
suggested yesterday.
The 270 soldiers who embarrassed Nato by beating alliance
forces to the Kosovo capital returned to Bosnia yesterday
as mysteriously as they had arrived. The airfield was one
of the jewels in the crown of the late President Tito's
formidable defence network.
The two western taxiways of the north-south runway lead
directly into a mountain, continuing for hundreds of yards
inside.
In Tito's day schoolchildren would be taken on trips to the
facility. During the decade of President Milosevic's
repression, it has become one of the inner sanctums of his
security machine, with civilian access barred.
Sources at Jane's Defence Weekly speculated yesterday that
the Russians may have had an interest in keeping Nato nations
away from Slatina while the hangars and storage areas were
cleared. The sources suggested that Slatina could have
housed air defence and missile systems unfamiliar to the
West that had been recently sold or hired to Belgrade in
breach of sanctions.
Among the hardware the Yugoslav Army may have had inside the
underground facility are SA10 surface-to-air missiles and a
Czech-designed triangulation device, known as "Tamara",
capable of tracking Stealth aircraft.
An RAF officer in the British sector of Slatina said that
during the first few days of Russian control, "the stuff was
pouring out of here". The officer, who was allowed into the
Russian sector of the base only days ago, said Slatina was
one of the most impressive military facilities he had seen.
Louis Garneau, Nato's Kosovo spokesman, said the Canadian
Army had been unsuccesful in monitoring what the Russians
were up to. On Saturday night, for the first time in their
month-long occupation of the airfield, the Russians allowed
a few reporters on to the western taxiways.
Attempts to view the tunnels into the mountain were thwarted
and officers insisted that the hangars inside the mountain
were empty. There was evidence that Nato had attempted to
bomb one of the massive steel doors protecting the tunnels
but the Russians said it was still possible for aircraft to
taxi in and out.
Local Albanians have always maintained that Slatina was used
to house chemical weapons, and a source at Jane's Defence
Weekly said that similar facilities in Iraq had been used in
this way. He pointed out, however, that accusations that the
Serbs had used chemical weapons in the Bosnian conflict were
largely unfounded, and there was little proof that they had
been employed in Kosovo. Officially, the Yugoslav Army said
Slatina was always used to house Mig21 and Mig29 aircraft.
Major Paul Young, a British Kfor spokesman, said Slatina's
tunnels may at last be opened to the press this week. The
Russians, however, were less sure, and Lieutenant-Colonel
Mikhail Koftunyenko said permission could only come from
senior levels within the Russian Army.
As the initial and most controversial deployment of 270
Russians drove north to Podujevo yesterday, there was a
sense at Kfor headquarters that the mystery of what was in
Slatina will remain unsolved.
-----Original Message-----
From: Bill Kingsbury
Date: 17 June 99
Subj: Kosovo's underground airbase
[ Is this where the Serbs stashed their supply of
Soviet Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs),
technology left behind from the old Soviet Union ?
Ref: independent reports by Joseph Farah on 4-19-99
and Sherman H. Skolnick on 4-13-99... ]
from:
http://www.stratfor.com/crisis/kosovo/commentary/c9906121647.htm?section=3
Possible Goal of Russian Troops
1647 GMT, 990612
The race to Pristina may have been significant for more than simple
political reasons. In the hills outside Pristina is a massive
underground airbase, built to withstand both Soviet invasion and
nuclear bombardment. The complex is one of the most valuable
military facilities not only in Kosovo, but also in Yugoslavia as a
whole. Yet, under the terms of the UN Security Council resolution,
it will fall under the control of KFOR. Given that Yugoslav forces
hope one day to return to Kosovo, and would prefer not to have to
rout the KLA or its successor from the airbase, Yugoslav military
officials may have requested the Russian sprint to Pristina to
guarantee that the base fell under the control of friendly KFOR
troops.
.
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