Between sky and land, 78 days that changed history: NATO’s intervention and the KLA’s war in the liberation of Kosova

This moment marked not only the end of the war, but also the beginning of a new state-building process

On March 24, 1999, the sky over the Balkans became a dividing line between two eras. That night, aircraft of the North Atlantic Alliance launched airstrikes against military and strategic targets of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, opening a chapter that would forever change the history of Kosova and the very logic of international intervention at the end of the 20th century. Twenty-seven years later, this intervention remains one of the most debated, yet also one of the most decisive moments in modern European history.

The decision to bomb did not come immediately. It was the culmination of a decade of systematic repression against ethnic Albanians, built on the dismantling of Kosova’s autonomy in 1989 and consolidated through a state apparatus that excluded an entire population from institutions, the economy, and public life. By the late 1990s, this policy was no longer merely discrimination, it had evolved into an armed conflict, in which Serbian and Yugoslav forces carried out extensive operations against the civilian population.

At this stage, the role of the Kosova Liberation Army became central to the course of the war. Formed as a guerrilla force with the aim of liberating Kosova from Serbian control, the KLA initially appeared as a fragmented structure, but over time it consolidated into an organized military and political actor. It carried out attacks against Serbian forces and their institutions, directly challenging the authority of the regime in Belgrade.

For Kosova’s ethnic Albanians, the KLA was not only a fighting force but also a mechanism of survival. In various rural and mountainous areas where its presence was stronger, it created pockets of relative safety for civilians by organizing defense, evacuations, and resistance against operations by Serbian and paramilitary forces. In a context where state institutions functioned as instruments of repression, this role of the KLA took on a clearly protective dimension.

However, the escalation of its actions was used by the regime of Slobodan Milošević as justification for large-scale military offensives, which in practice largely targeted the civilian population. This created a spiral of violence, where operations against the KLA often turned into campaigns of ethnic cleansing, involving the burning of villages, killings, and the mass expulsion of civilians.

Images emerging from Kosova in early 1998, including the offensive against the Jashari family and later the Račak massacre, shifted the crisis from a regional conflict into an urgent international issue. Reports of civilian killings, mass expulsions, and the systematic destruction of Albanian settlements convinced Western capitals that an organized campaign of ethnic cleansing was underway. Within weeks, hundreds of thousands of people were forced to flee their homes, while the KLA, facing a far superior military force, continued to resist on the ground, keeping the war front active.

Diplomacy was the last attempt to avoid intervention. The Rambouillet negotiations were conceived as a compromise solution that would grant Kosova expanded autonomy and establish an international security presence. The Albanian delegation, in which the KLA had by then assumed a significant political role, accepted the agreement as a step toward internationalizing the Kosova issue. The refusal of the Serbian side brought this process to an end and pushed the situation toward military intervention.

NATO’s air campaign did not take place in a strategic vacuum. While aircraft struck targets from the air, the KLA continued its operations against Serbian forces on the ground. This combination created dual pressure on the Yugoslav army. On one hand, it faced airstrikes targeting infrastructure and logistics, on the other, it had to maintain control over a terrain where armed resistance had not been extinguished.

Although the KLA did not have the capacity to confront a regular army directly under conventional conditions, its continued presence forced Yugoslav forces to disperse and remain engaged in ground operations. This indirectly increased the effectiveness of NATO’s air campaign, making it more difficult for Belgrade to manage the situation as a whole.

At the same time, the KLA became an important factor in protecting civilians during the most critical phases of the war. In many cases, its units escorted civilians during withdrawals, organized escape corridors, and attempted to prevent the penetration of paramilitary forces into certain areas. This did not stop the humanitarian catastrophe, but in some regions it helped reduce damage and save lives.

The cost of the war remained heavy. Nevertheless, the intervention occurred at a moment when violence against Albanian civilians had reached its peak and was continuing to escalate.

When the bombing stopped on June 10, 1999, and Serbian forces began to withdraw from Kosova, the reality on the ground changed fundamentally. The entry of NATO troops was followed by the massive return of Albanian refugees, while the KLA began a process of political and institutional transformation. From a guerrilla force, it evolved into a key factor in the transition toward building new institutions.

This moment marked not only the end of the war, but also the beginning of a new state-building process. The liberation of Kosova was not the result of a single factor, but of the interplay between resistance on the ground and international intervention. Without NATO’s air campaign, the pressure on Belgrade might not have reached the necessary peak. But without the KLA’s resistance, the war might have taken a different trajectory, in which the ethnic cleansing of Albanians would have advanced further without internal resistance.

Twenty-seven years later, this interplay remains essential to understanding how Kosova’s liberation was achieved. The history of those 78 days is not only the story of bombing, but also of a war on the ground, of a population struggling for survival, and of a movement that transformed from guerrilla resistance into a political force.

The Kosova that exists today is the product of this complex reality. It is the result of an international intervention that reshaped global balances, but also of a war for liberation fought on the ground, in villages, mountains, and cities, where the confrontation was not only military, but existential. /The Balkan Report/