Photo exhibition 'Nis - Mariupol' opened in Serbia with participation of Russian House

BELGRADE, June 23. /TASS/. Photo exhibition ‘Nis - Mariupol’, organized by the association of Serbia-Russian friendship titled Bratstvo with the support of the Russian House in Belgrade, has opened in Nis in the south of Serbia, the third-largest city in the country.

"The exhibition shows the life of the two cities, their residents, architecture, cultural heritage, and daily life. The special section of the exposition consists of photographs, comparing the aftermath of the bombing of Nis by NATO forces in 1999 and the destruction of Mariupol by the Ukrainian military in 2022," the Russian House said.

The exhibition will be open to the public in the cultural center of Nis in the next ten days.

NATO’s aggression against Yugoslavia began on March 24, 1999, and lasted 78 days. The alliance named "the need to prevent the genocide of the Albanian population in Kosovo" as the main cause of the offensive operation dubbed Operation Allied Force. According to the alliance, the NATO air forces made 38,000 combat flights during the operation. As a result of the bombings, according to Serbia, from 3,500 to 4,000 people were killed, about 10,000 individuals were injured, with two thirds of them being civilians. In three months of NATO’s bombings 15 tons of depleted uranium were dropped in shells in Serbia, which after that ranked first in the number of cancer cases in Europe.