Kosovo War

Cultural  

1. A brief war fought in 1999 between NATO and Serbia, the main remnant of the former Yugoslavia, over the status of the Yugoslavian province of Kosovo. In 1998, Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic sent Serbian troops to take back areas of Kosovo controlled by ethnic Albanian guerrillas, triggering a NATO air campaign in 1999. The war ended when Serbia agreed to a peace agreement sponsored by the United Nations.

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The Kosovo War was NATO's first military engagement. It was controversial in part because NATO was not repelling an attack on member states but intervening in what was arguably an internal affair.

Example Sentences

Dedicated to the victims of the Kosovo War, the 82-year-old's choral work from 2000 reflects on the devastation of conflict while expressing hope for peace.

From BBC • Apr. 7, 2026

The Albanian-language film about a woman who starts her own business after the Kosovo War was an inspirational gem, but Basholli hadn’t even dared to dream of just how far they would go.

From Seattle Times • Jan. 29, 2022

The United States already has 600 troops based in Serbia's former province of Kosovo to maintain the fragile peace more than two decades after the end of the Kosovo War in 1999.

From Reuters • Jan. 6, 2022

Basholli doesn’t revisit the Kosovo War in documentary detail or dig into its geopolitical backdrop; she also doesn’t illuminate the cultural and social practices that so harshly circumscribe the lives of these widows.

From New York Times • Nov. 4, 2021

The romantic thriller, set in the late 1990s during the Kosovo War, follows a relationship between two American teen boys.

From Slate • Mar. 4, 2019