According to the organizers, the photo of the alleged NATO bomb with the message "Happy Easter" was withdrawn from the exhibition in Moscow after Radio Free Europe (RSE) asked about its origin.
The photo was part of an installation titled "NATO war crimes in former Yugoslavia" which was opened in the House of the Russian Historical Society on August 30 in Moscow, he writes RSE.
Under the photo of the bomb on which "Happy Easter" is written in blue paint in English, there was an "explanation" that "such bombs were used by NATO air forces to bomb Serbia."
However, by searching the source of the photo of the "painted bomb", RSE found the site on whose page it was published.
The author of the website, Michael Benolkin, told RFE/RL that the bomb was photographed at the American base in South Vietnam in the period from 1967-1970. years, decades before the NATO intervention in the former Yugoslavia.
RSE also received confirmation of this information from the NATO military liaison office in Belgrade.
"The mentioned image was taken from the US photographic archive, which contains photographs of former US military activities in Vietnam," NATO's response states.
In response to RFE's questions about the origin of the controversial photo, the Russian Foundation for Research in Democracy, which prepared the exhibition in Moscow, stated that the said exhibit was replaced by another "in order to clarify the exhibition."
By the way, this is a photo that was previously published in tabloids in Serbia in the context of the NATO bombing of the then Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), with claims that NATO soldiers "bombed the citizens of the FRY on Easter in 1999".
In 1999, the North Atlantic Alliance launched an intervention in the FRY due to the exodus and crimes committed by Serbian forces against the Albanian population in Kosovo.
NATO: Spreading disinformation and intimidation
"This is a deliberate lie and a completely unfounded claim," it states in response to the claim that "such bombs" were used in the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.
NATO states that the mentioned image was taken from the US archive of photographs of former US military activities in Vietnam and that "it is not the first time that malicious actors have presented such fabrications".
"We call on Russia to play a constructive role in the Western Balkans. Unfortunately, we regularly see that it is doing the opposite. We are witnessing the spread of disinformation, intimidation and pressure, hacking and other destabilizing activities," according to the NATO military liaison office in Belgrade.
What do the authors of the exhibition say?
RFE/RL contacted the Russian Historical Society in whose premises the exhibition was presented, as well as the Foundation for the Study of Democracy, which prepared the exhibition, regarding the origin of the photograph.
The answer came only from Maksim Grigoriev, the president of the Foundation for Democracy Research, who thanked RFE for "improving" the exhibition.
He stated that "in order to clarify the exhibition", that photo has now been replaced by "an image of the bombing of civilian cities in Yugoslavia by American planes".
Grigoriev confirmed that the aforementioned photograph was shown at the exhibition with the description that "such bombs were used by NATO air forces to bomb Serbia."
"The inscription indicated that bombs of this type and even more destructive ones were used in Yugoslavia," he wrote in his reply.
According to Michael Benolkin, the author of the F-100 website, the photo shows the M117 bomb type.
The type was "extensively used during the Vietnam War," and the M117 and M117R bombs were also dropped during Operation Desert Storm in 1991 against Iraq for its invasion of Kuwait, according to the United States National Air Force Museum website.
Who are the organizers of the exhibition?
In one of the pictures from the opening of the exhibition in Moscow, Maksim Grigoriev shows the disputed photograph of the "painted" bomb to the director of the Russian foreign intelligence service and the president of the Russian Historical Society, Sergei Naryshkin.
As of October 2022, Grigoriev is on Canada's list of sanctioned individuals as a "Russian disinformation agent."
On the website of the Government of Canada, it is stated that the "black list" includes people "who are responsible for facilitating and supporting the unjustified invasion of Russia and the attempted annexation of Ukrainian territory."
Sergey Naryshkin is also under sanctions. He has been on the US "blacklist" since 2014 as an official of the Russian government due to "involvement in the situation in Ukraine".
The Russian Historical Society headed by Naryshkin is an association whose founders include, among others, the Russian Academy of Sciences, as well as Russian state media such as RIA Novosti and Interfax.
This is not the first time that claims have come from Russia that NATO bombed Serbia with Easter "congratulations".
Aleksandar Lukašević, permanent representative of Russia in the OSCE, spoke in March 2019 at the Permanent Council of that organization, on the occasion of the anniversary of the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999.
"The messages 'Do you still want to be Serbs?' or 'Happy Easter' that pilots from NATO countries drew on bombs and missiles were examples of particularly inhumane mockery of the Serbian people," according to the text of his speech published on the OSCE website.
RSE asked Lukašević whether he has proof that a bomb with the message "Happy Easter" was dropped on Yugoslavia in 1999, but no answer was received.
What is the reason for the exhibition in Moscow?
On the website of the Russian Historical Society, the reason for the exhibition is stated to be the 28th anniversary of the military operation (NATO) "Deliberate Force" (during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina) in 1995.
"Alliance planes bombed local Serb positions, which the West intended to force to agree to an international plan," according to the website of the Russian Historical Society.
The reason for the NATO intervention, which was launched on August 30, 1995, was the artillery attack of the Republika Srpska Army on Sarajevo two days earlier, when 43 civilians were killed and 84 were seriously wounded in the Markala market.
Until September 14, 1995, NATO aircraft carried out a series of attacks on selected targets in Bosnia and Herzegovina held by the Army of Republika Srpska.
The operation eventually led to the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement, which ended the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Nevertheless, at the opening of the exhibition in Moscow, the director of the Russian foreign intelligence service and the president of the Russian Historical Society, Sergey Naryshkin, spoke about the second NATO intervention, in 1999, against Serbia and Montenegro, which were then part of the FR Yugoslavia.
"It was a demonstration of force, an insolent and aggressive demonstration of force that violated all norms of international law," according to his statement on the website of the Russian Historical Society.
At the opening of the exhibition, Grigoriev from the Foundation for Research in Democracy compared the war in Yugoslavia and the "tragic events" in Donbass.
In 2014, Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea peninsula and supported pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region.
"What is happening now is, of course, many times bigger and much more terrible. What the Ukrainian armed forces are doing under the direct leadership of NATO countries and the United States is an absolute war crime," he said.
Grigoriev is the head of the so-called International Public Court for Ukraine, which was established in March 2022 in Russia with the aim of gathering "information about the crimes of the Kiev regime".
According to the media, Grigoriev has previously launched similar investigations, accusing the US of crimes against humanity in Syria, and Ukraine of war crimes in the Donbass region.
On the other hand, on March 17, the International Criminal Court based in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom it suspects of war crimes, including the illegal deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia.
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, almost 9.500 civilians have been killed and more than 17.000 have been wounded, according to UN data. It is feared that the number of victims is significantly higher.
Millions have left their homes.
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