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Russian peacekeepers will arrive in Kosovo on Tuesday  MILITARY PLAN:  MESSAGE BOARD: Rebuilding Kosovo  IN-DEPTH SPECIAL: Focus on Kosovo

July 5, 1999
Web posted at: 12:13 p.m. EDT (1613 GMT)

From staff and wire reports

MOSCOW (CNN) -- Planes carrying more Russian peacekeepers are expected to begin arriving in Kosovo on Tuesday after NATO and Russia resolved differences over how the expanded Russian deployment was to take place, a KFOR spokesman said Monday.

Word of the expected arrival came shortly after a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said that "all obstacles" to the Russian deployment had been removed.

The spokesman said that Russian troops were on three-hour alert and could leave for Kosovo "at any time."

The deployment of around 3,600 troops was supposed to have begun over the weekend, but NATO persuaded Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania not to open their air space to Russian planes until details were settled.

NATO officials rushed to Moscow for talks to clear the impasse.

NATO officials said last month's Helsinki agreement, which cleared the way for Russia to participate in KFOR, NATO's peacekeeping force, did not specifically outline how the Russian troops would be positioned and to whom they would answer.

The Helsinki agreement called for the Russians to deploy troops in the U.S., French and German zones in Kosovo, as well as additional troops at the Pristina airport. About 700 Russian troops have already been stationed at the airport, helping to prepare it for general use by KFOR forces.

The Russian Defense Ministry said Monday that the airport at Kosovo's provincial capital was ready to receive Russian troops and equipment. Other Russian troops are expected to travel by sea from Black Sea ports.

In other developments:

• The U.N.'s High Commissioner for Refugees, Sadako Ogata, arrived Monday in Pristina on her first fact-finding trip to Kosovo since the arrival of NATO forces last month. Ogata said the return of ethnic Albanian refugees was progressing smoothly.
• NATO officials said that 29,000 peacekeepers had been deployed in Kosovo, more than half of the contingent the Western alliance plans to deploy.
• Former U.S. Senator Bob Dole visited a mass grave site near Pec on Monday, saying he hoped to draw more attention to atrocities in the province.

Moscow Bureau Chief Jill Dougherty and Steve Harrigan and The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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