War Stories From Pastrik

The Battle of Pastrik was the second part of the land offensive that KLA terrorists tried to execute in cooperation with NATO forces and the standing Albanian army units from the direction of the Republic of Albania towards Kosovo and Metohija in 1999. When it became clear that the Kosare offensive did not yield results and that they could not break the defence of the Yugoslav army in that region, the KLA launched an attack on Mount Pastrik near Prizren. Like in Kosare, the goal was for the KLA forces from Albania to join the KLA forces in the territory of Kosovo and Metohija. The Operation Arrow 2, as Albanian and NATO planners named it, began on May 26th and ended on June 14th, when the Yugoslav army retreated from the territory of Kosovo and Metohija after the signing of the Kumanovo Agreement. The enemy failed to achieve its goal and break the line of defence of the 549th Motorized Brigade. The Yugoslav army was undefeated at Pastrik. Moving stories of surviving soldiers of the 549th Motorized Brigade, the only unit exposed to carpet bombing by NATO's strategic aviation, were illustrated using authentic archive videos of the Associated Press. The videos were made on the territory of Albania. We also used the recordings of our own reporter, made after the bombing, as well as photos which the soldiers themselves had taken. The documentary follows the events chronologically, starting from the attack on the Gorozup outpost to the retreat of our army after the signing of the Kumanovo Agreement. Although the enemy tried to defeat our units by heavily attacking and bombing them, there were no substantial material losses. Twenty-six members of the 549th Motorized Brigade died on the front line, while the losses of KLA were almost 20 times greater.Genre: Documentary, History, 1999 War in Kosovo

Country of Production: Serbia
Produced by: Public Service Media - RTS and the Ministry of Defence
Original Title: War stories from Pastrik
Year of production: 2019
Duration part: 79' HD
Languages: Serbian, English, Russian