American soldier relates the moment when there was almost no confrontation with Russians in Kosovo

Lieutenant Chris Léureux was part of the US contingent in Kosovo during 1999.

In an interview for “Modern War Institute” has confessed to his engagement in Kosovo, and at the moment, there was nearly no armed clashes with Russian forces deployed in Kosovo, writes the online newspaper Reporter.net.

He has indicated that American forces were deployed in the Monteith Champion since the war ended between Gjilan and Kamenica. He has indicated that the Russians were located in the Serb-run section east of Kosovo.

The “Russians [the soldiers] accompanied Serbian children to the school, which was in our area. They were sent to school and returned in the afternoon to”, Lieutenant Léureux said.

A drunken elderly gentleman came to our checkpoint so often because they asked for medical help because we had equipment and he showed up. He told a serious story about the Russians beating him. We said, wait a minute, that doesn't make sense. There are no Russians here. What are you talking about? The Russians are away. But that day, we had no idea that the Russians were escorting the kids to school in our area”, L ureux showed.

We reported the case in our chain of command and told them that we might have to investigate, but the master is not very reliable. But that was the assessment I did that time and we said that we should continue”, the American lieutenant added.

He has confessed that a few days after the complaint of the elderly, the US Army was told that these Russians had just violated a woman.

We started with our vehicles in this city to see what was happening. We went there and we actually found four Russian soldiers at a cafe and they were drinking rakhi. We started talking to them, and the owner of the coffee shop picked up one of us and told us that these Russian soldiers had sexually assaulted a woman, but later he says they didn't rape her because she was gone” Lieutenant Lürreaux indicated.

We were confused and reported the case. And my boss said I should keep the Russian soldiers there. He told me to delay. I told the soldiers we should keep them here until the bosses make their decision about what they'd do. They were wondering if they would send military police”, he confessed.

The lieutenant said the attack was related to the old man's complaint a few days ago.

Some soldiers who had beaten him were there [in the cafe] and some not”, the American lieutenant indicated.

He had kept the Russian soldiers for 45 minutes, but he could not carry more because he had originally taken orders not to use force toward them.

“After [Russian soldiers] left, I communicated with the base, and they told me you should keep them there and you are authorized to use force”, he added.

After ten minutes the military police arrived and wanted to arrest the soldiers for the attack.