A NATO aerial photo shows the Novi Sad heliport and vehicle storage depot in Serbia that were targeted by airstrikes Tuesday RELATED VIDEO CNN's Brent Sadler reports on ongoing protests and Yugoslavian sentiment -- March 31 Windows Media 28K 80K CNN's Steve Harrigan reports on Russian tensions over Kosovo on Wednesday, March 31 Windows Media 28K 80K On CNN March 31, NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana reaffirmed the organization's stance against Yugoslavia Windows Media 28K 80K To view the latest video streams on the strikes in Yugoslavia, use the arrow buttons below to scroll through the video gallery. 28 K 80 K IMAGE GALLERY: Flight from Kosovo  ALSO: U.S. denies it will support Kosovo independence U.N. says starvation could hit Kosovo soon Weather, air defenses hamper NATO War crimes court announces indictment of Serb paramilitary leader Access to NATO's Web site disrupted Go along on a B-52 mission  MESSAGE BOARD Crisis in Kosovo  NATO Maps: NATO military targets Ethnic Cleansing

March 31, 1999
Web posted at: 1:45 p.m. EST (1845 GMT)

In this story: NATO steps up airstrikes Policy of 'identity elimination' NATO, Yugoslavia list targets Russia to send navy vessel RELATED STORIES, SITES

BRUSSELS, Belgium (CNN) -- NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana said Wednesday that the alliance remained determined to halt the killings of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo and to damage the Serb "war machinery" in Yugoslavia as much as possible.

Yugoslavia's representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Vladislav Jovanovic, said NATO was creating an "artificial humanitarian situation" and was trying to broaden the alliance's influence in the Balkans. ( 292 K/26 sec. AIFF or WAV sound)

NATO announced earlier in the day that it had expanded its list of bombing targets and the pace of bombing raids.

Solana told CNN that the basic objectives, however, had not changed. He said that the aim of Operation Allied Force was to "damage as much as possible the machinery of war, and the destruction of the Serbian army and the military police." ( 261 K/24 sec. AIFF or WAV sound)

"We are going to continue to damage as much as possible those units that are responsible for the criminal acts that have taken place in Kosovo," Solana said in his interview with CNN.

'Artificial' refugee crisis

"Albanian terrorists, in close cooperation with NATO, have told the people to escape from Kosovo in order to manufacture an artificial humanitarian situation," he said.

Tens of thousands of ethnic Albanians have fled to Macedonia, Albania and Montenegro in the past few days. Many of them told CNN of random executions by Serb army and paramilitary police units, looting, torching and forced expulsions.

The refugee exodus has triggered a massive international aid effort involving many Western nations and all major international humanitarian aid agencies.

Jovanovic accused NATO and the KLA of teaming up and of trying to spread the influence of NATO in the Balkans.

NATO attacks expanded, faster pace

In light of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's continued crackdown in the Serb province, NATO said Wednesday the airstrikes against Serb military targets in Yugoslavia would be stepped up.

NATO spokesman Jamie Shea said the alliance would now "extend the range and the tempo of operations in order to maximize the effectiveness of the (bombing) campaign."

"No facility, no unit, which is currently being used to plan, conceive, direct or carry out the Yugoslav campaign against the Kosovars is going to be a sanctuary," said Shea.

The alliance says it will only stop its raids if Milosevic accepts an international peace proposal, or NATO considers the Yugoslav military forces degraded to the point they cannot continue their crackdown in Kosovo.

Belgrade policy of 'identity elimination'

NATO also accused the Yugoslav authorities of deliberate "identity elimination" of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

"The Yugoslav forces, so we are learning, are destroying the archives of the Kosovar people: property deeds, marriage licenses, birth certificates, financial and other records," Shea told the news conference.

"This is a kind of Orwellian scenario of attempting to deprive a people of a sense of past and a sense of community on which it depends and to rewrite history," he said, comparing it to a vicious regime described in the novel "1984" by English author George Orwell.

NATO lists recent targets

NATO military spokesman Air Commodore David Wilby told the news briefing in Brussels that among the targets hit recently in Yugoslavia were: A helicopter port in Novi Sad, an airfield in Nis and an army garrison in Pristina.

Belgrade was also on the target list, according to NATO.

Wilby said a total of 30 Yugoslav aircraft had been "destroyed in the air and on the ground" so far in the NATO campaign.

Yugoslavia lists targets hit

According to the Yugoslav news agency Tanjug, NATO missiles hit industrial suburbs of Belgrade and installations around Pristina, the capital of Kosovo.

Tanjug said NATO also dropped cluster bombs on the outskirts of Kosovo's second largest city, Pec, on Wednesday, hitting one neighborhood inhabited by Serbs.

The Serb authorities said the central town of Kragujevac suffered severe damage at an air force facility.

Jovanovic told CNN the bombings were a clear sign of NATO's "criminal aggression" against a sovereign country. And that message was also carried on posters and placards in Belgrade, where Serbs rallied at a rock concert Wednesday.

Report: Russia to send navy vessel

Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev said Wednesday that Russia had officially notified Turkey that it planned to send one Naval reconnaissance vessel into the Mediterranean Sea, "into the region of conflict in Yugoslavia" in early April.

A senior U.S. government official also confirmed that Russia had filed a request for passage into the Mediterranean Sea.

In Moscow, Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov vowed to press on with efforts to halt NATO's bombing and achieve a peaceful resolution.

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