The treaty that ended the NATO air strikes in 1999 did not mean that the Serbian military was defeated, Army of Serbia (VS) chief of staff General Ljubisa Dikovic said on Monday.

“Wasn’t it NATO, perhaps, that was defeated because an agreement was signed with the modest but brave personnel of our army,” Dikovic said at the opening of an exhibition of photographs commemorating the soldiers and police officers killed during the 1999 war.

Defence Minister Aleksandar Vulin said the dead soldiers and police officers are also victims, adding that someone has to answer for them. “The fact that they were defending the country could not have given anyone the right to kill them,” Vulin is quoted as saying by Belgrade media.

The exhibition titled Heroes of the Homeland – killed during the NATO aggression of 1990 features the photographs and names of 725 military and 417 police personnel who were killed in 1999. The exhibition opened in the gallery of the Military Museum in Belgrade.