RELATED VIDEO The Muslim world is responding to its brethren in exile from Kosovo. CNN's Jeff Flock shows what it's doing. (May 26) Windows Media 28K 80K Almost half of the refugees are children. CNN's Kasra Naji explains their special needs. (May 26) Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K To view the latest video streams on the strikes in Kosovo, use the arrow buttons below to scroll through the video gallery.        Windows Media Real        28 K 80 K IMAGE GALLERY Images of refugees A cracked window to a war To the corners of the world: The flight of Kosovo's refugees  ALSO: Sources: War Crimes Tribunal preparing indictment against Milosevic Trial of aid workers begins in Yugoslavia  THE DELUGE OF REFUGEES: Where are they going?  MESSAGE BOARD: Crisis in Kosovo  MAPS: NATO officials describe the air campaign  IN-DEPTH SPECIAL: NATO at 50 Strike on Yugoslavia

May 26, 1999
Web posted at: 12:13 p.m. EDT (1613 GMT)

In this story: NATO holds to conditions Record number of strike sorties RELATED STORIES, SITES

MOSCOW (CNN) -- Three-way talks aimed at finding a solution to the Kosovo crisis resumed Wednesday in Moscow, where Russia's Balkans envoy repeated his call for an end to NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia.

"The result of the upcoming negotiations on Wednesday should be a stop to missile and bomb strikes on Yugoslavia," former Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin told reporters.

Chernomyrdin was meeting with Deputy U.S. Secretary of State Strobe Talbott and Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, the European Union representative, to iron out differences between the positions of NATO and Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

Earlier, Talbott confirmed that NATO would consider allowing some Yugoslav security forces back into Kosovo, after a complete withdrawal of Yugoslav forces.

"As Secretary (of State Madeleine) Albright and others have said, once there has been a complete withdrawal, the international community might consider permitting the return of some official Yugoslav personnel to perform very clearly specified and very carefully circumscribed and supervised functions within Kosovo," Talbott said as he left the Russian Foreign Ministry after talks with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov.

The issue is one of the sticking points in negotiations with Russia on a political settlement. Russia believes some Yugoslav forces should be allowed to remain behind in Kosovo after any pullout. Russian officials have not said how many troops this would include, saying this could be a subject of negotiation.

Russian officials have said the Yugoslav troops could guard Serbian "sacred sites" such as monasteries and religious shrines, as well as do some border patrols.

The composition of NATO's peacekeeping force is also a point of contention. NATO insists that its own troops be at the core of the force, but Milosevic has said he would accept only NATO forces that did not take part in the bombing campaign.

"(The) refugees have said time and time again that they will only go back if they see NATO in that peacekeeping force." said NATO spokesman Jamie Shea. "They need to know that that force is built around that NATO core (and) that that force ... is not going to crumble like a pack of cards at the first sign of a challenge."

NATO's conditions, Shea said, were not negotiable.

Talbott, Chernomyrdin and Ahtisaari are trying to "maximize the areas of agreement" in statements coming from various international entities, "so that Milosevic receives basically one message from the international community," Talbott said. That includes, he said, the European Union, the G-8 industrialized nations, the United Nations, NATO and Russia.

Chernomyrdin and Ahtisaari are to fly to Belgrade Thursday to meet with Milosevic, while Ivanov traveled to Stockholm Wednesday to discuss the Kosovo crisis with U.N. Secretary- General Kofi Annan.

Meanwhile, NATO showed no signs of ceasing its air campaign, instead promising only to intensify its efforts to pave the way for a return of the hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians who have fled Kosovo.

On Tuesday, NATO's chief policymaking body, the North Atlantic Council, signed off on a proposal to deploy a NATO- led force of about 50,000 troops -- far more than the 28,000 previously envisioned for that purpose.

The alliance continued to deny it was planning for a ground invasion of Kosovo, but Shea said Wednesday that there were plans relating "to a number of different ground operations." None have "gone beyond the initial planning stages," he said.

These photographs show a NATO warplane targeting a site (top) and the resulting explosion.

Overnight Tuesday into Wednesday morning, NATO planes flew 650 sorties into Yugoslavia, a record 284 of them strike sorties.

"The weather forecast for the next two weeks is for blue skies," Shea said, "so I have every reason to believe that record will be beaten quickly."

Serbian TV reported a strike on the Serbian TV building in Novi Sad, the country's second-largest city, and other attacks were reported in Prizren, Pristina, Djakovica, Suvi Dol, Bujanovac, Nis, Uzice and the villages of Careva Cesma and Strbce.

Other strikes included an air defense command post at Novi Sad, a command post at Pristina, a military training area at Kraljevo, a support base at Krivovo, a railway tunnel at Pristina that was being used as a military storage area, and the Belgrade MUP Special Police depot.

The Serb-run media center in the Kosovo capital, Pristina, said two children were killed and one seriously hurt Wednesday morning when a NATO missile hit the village of Radoste near Orahovac, 60 kilometers (38 miles) southwest of the provincial capital.

Moscow Bureau Chief Jill Dougherty and Correspondents Walter Rodgers and Matthew Chance contributed to this report.

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.