About 50,000 NATO soldiers and with them the temporary administration of the United Nations were deployed in Kosovo 24 years ago. 

On June 12, 1999, after 78 days of bombing by the American-led Western Military Alliance against Serbian-Montenegrin military targets in Kosovo in Serbia and Montenegro, NATO troops entered Kosovo in the peacekeeping mission that would be called KFOR , ending the almost two-year war between the insurgent Albanian population organized in the ranks of the Kosovo Liberation Army and the occupying Serbian-Montenegrin military and police forces. 

Praised by those who experienced it as the day of liberation and as one of the greatest days in Kosovo's history, June 12, although not recognized as an official holiday, is a day when world soldiers and diplomats will remember it as a day of near confrontation between the West and Russia, a day as it was said, 'that could start World War III.' 

The first NATO soldiers to enter Kosovo on June 12 were the special forces of Norway and those of the British Special Air Service, finding themselves face to face with Russian troops who the day before had 'surprisingly' taken the Airport of Pristina with the aim of dividing Kosovo. 

Russia intended to send thousands of reinforcements from the air, but after Washington's intervention, Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania rejected Moscow's request for the use of their airspace. 

After the US-British blockade of the airport runway, the Russian Foreign Ministry called the intervention of its soldiers 'a mistake.' And everything else is now history. The entry of NATO returned over a million Albanians to Kosovo. 

The entry of NATO soldiers opened the way to return to their homes, land and country over one million Kosovar Albanians displaced refugees in dozens of countries and three or four continents of the world. 

Until now, close to 500,000 members of the peacekeeping forces of many countries, mainly Western ones, have served in Kosovo, being far from their families and loved ones and sacrificing a part of their lives for freedom, security and peace in Kosovo.