Sarah Rainsford,Eastern and Southern Europe correspondentand
Guy Delauney,Balkans correspondent
AP Photo/Jerome Delay
Civilians risked their lives to cross Sarajevo’s main boulevard during the Bosnian war
The public prosecutor’s office in Milan has opened an investigation into claims that Italian citizens travelled to Bosnia-Herzegovina on “sniper safaris” during the war in the early 1990s.
Italians and others are alleged to have paid large sums to shoot at civilians in the besieged city of Sarajevo.
The Milan complaint was filed by journalist and novelist Ezio Gavazzeni, who describes a “manhunt” by “very wealthy people” with a passion for weapons who “paid to be able to kill defenceless civilians” from Serb positions in the hills around Sarajevo.
Different rates were charged to kill men, women or children, according to some reports.
More than 11,000 people died during the brutal four-year siege of Sarejevo.
Yugoslavia was torn apart by war and the city was surrounded by Serb forces and subjected to constant shelling and sniper fire.
Similar allegations about “human hunters” from abroad have been made several times over the years, but the evidence gathered by Gavazzeni, which includes the testimony of a Bosnian military intelligence officer, is now being examined by Italian counter terrorism prosecutor Alessandro Gobbis.
The charge is murder.
CHRISTOPHE SIMON/AFP
More than 11,000 civilians died in the siege of Sarajevo
The Bosnian officer apparently revealed that his Bosnian colleagues found out about the so-called safaris in late 1993 and then passed on the information to Italy’s Sismi military intelligence in early 1994.
The response from Sismi came a couple of months later, he said. They found out that “safari” tourists would fly from the northern Italian border city of Trieste and then travel to the hills above Sarajevo.
“We’ve put a stop to it and there won’t be any more safaris,” the officer was told, according to Ansa news agency. Within two to three months the trips had stopped.
Ezio Gavazzeni, who usually writes about terrorism and the mafia, first read about the sniper tours to Sarajevo three decades ago when Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported the story, but without firm evidence.
He returned to the topic after seeing “Sarajevo Safari”, a documentary film from 2022 by Slovenian director Miran Zupanic which alleges that those involved in the killings came from several countries, including the US and Russia as well as Italy.
Gavazzeni began to dig further and in February handed prosecutors his findings, said to amount to a 17-page file including a report by former Sarajevo mayor Benjamina Karic.
MICHAEL EVSTAFIEV/AFP
Snipers would shoot at civilians from areas controlled by the Bosnian Serbs overlooking Sarajevo
An investigation in Bosnia itself appears to have stalled.
Speaking to Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper, Gavazzeni alleges that “many” took part in the practice, “at least a hundred” in all, with Italians paying “a lot of money” to do so, up to €100,000 (£88,000) in today’s terms.
In 1992, late Russian nationalist writer and politician Eduard Limonov was filmed firing multiple rounds into Sarajevo from a heavy machine gun.
He was being given a tour of hillside positions by Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, who was later convicted of genocide by an international tribunal in the Hague.
Limonov didn’t pay for his war tourism, though. He was there as an admirer of Karadzic, telling him: “We Russians should take example from you.”
Italian prosecutors and police are said to have identified a list of witnesses as they try to establish who might have been involved.
However, members of the British forces who served in Sarajevo in the 1990s have told the BBC that they never heard of any so-called “sniper tourism” during the Bosnian conflict.
They indicated that any attempts to bring in people from third countries who had paid to shoot at civilians in Sarajevo would have been “logistically difficult to accomplish”, due to the proliferation of checkpoints.
British forces served both inside Sarajevo and in the areas surrounding the city, where Serb forces were stationed and they saw nothing at the time to suggest that “sniper tourism” was taking place.
One soldier described the allegations that foreigners had paid to shoot at civilians as an “urban myth”.
Item 1 of 2 A general view on the Spasskaya tower of the Kremlin and St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow, Russia May 16, 2024. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov
[2/2] The Russian flag flies on the dome of the Kremlin Senate building behind Spasskaya Tower in Moscow, Russia June 2, 2025. REUTERS/Evgenia Novozhenina
Summary
Kremlin praises US National Security Strategy
Kremlin says NATO statements are encouraging
Kremlin cautions that some in US will see it differently
MOSCOW, Dec 7 (Reuters) – The Kremlin on Sunday welcomed U.S. President Donald Trump’s new national security strategy and said it largely accorded with Russia’s own perceptions, the first time that Moscow has so fulsomely praised such a document from its former Cold War foe.
The U.S. National Security Strategy described Trump’s vision as one of “flexible realism” and argued that the U.S. should revive the 19th century Monroe Doctrine, which declared the Western Hemisphere to be Washington’s zone of influence.
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The strategy, signed by Trump, also warned that Europe faces “civilizational erasure”, that it was a “core” U.S. interest to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine, and that Washington wanted to reestablish strategic stability with Russia.
“The adjustments that we see correspond in many ways to our vision,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told state television reporter Pavel Zarubin when asked about the new U.S. strategy.
Such fulsome public agreement between Moscow and Washington on the tectonic plates of global politics is rare, though they did cooperate closely after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union on returning nuclear weapons from former Soviet republics to Russia, and after the deadly Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
TRUMP’S STRATEGY LARGELY ACCORDS TO RUSSIA’S VIEW
During the Cold War, Moscow portrayed the United States as a decadent capitalist empire doomed by the historical certainties of Marxism, while U.S. Ronald Reagan in 1983 called the Soviet Union an “evil empire” and the “focus of evil in the modern world.”
After the Soviet collapse, Moscow expressed hopes for a partnership with the West but as Washington moved to support the enlargement of the NATO alliance, as outlined in President Bill Clinton’s 1994 strategy, tensions began to mount. They were pushed to breaking point under President Vladimir Putin, who rose to the top Kremlin job on the last day of 1999.
Asked about the pledge in the U.S. document to end “the perception, and preventing the reality, of the NATO military alliance as a perpetually expanding alliance”, the Kremlin’s Peskov said it was encouraging.
But Peskov also cautioned that what he said was the U.S. “deep state” saw the world differently to Trump, who has used the term to refer to an allegedly entrenched network of U.S. officials who seek to undermine those who challenge the status quo, including Trump himself.
Critics of Trump say there is no such thing as a “deep state,” and that Trump and his allies are trafficking in a conspiracy theory to justify an executive-branch power grab.
WASHINGTON AND MOSCOW LOOK TO CHINA
Since Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, U.S. strategies have designated Moscow as an aggressor or a threat that was trying to destabilise the post-Cold War order by force.
In comments to the state-run TASS news agency, Peskov said calling for cooperation with Moscow on strategic stability issues rather than describing Russia as a direct threat was a positive step.
The Trump strategy describes what it calls the Indo-Pacific as one of the “key economic and geopolitical battlegrounds”, saying it would build up U.S. and allied military power to prevent a conflict with China over Taiwan.
Russia pivoted to Asia – and China in particular – after the West imposed sanctions on Russia for the war in Ukraine and Europe sought to wean itself off Russian oil and gas.
Trump in March told Fox News that “as a student of history, which I am — and I’ve watched it all — the first thing you learn is you don’t want Russia and China to get together.”
Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne and Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Philippa Fletcher
So Ron and his sister arrived two days ago. Lucky for me she is a doer who jumps in to do stuff and doesn’t wait for others to do for her. She has really helped Ron get a lot of stuff done. She helps when my back goes out. She is doing supper right now so I can catch up on the last few days of news. I really hope she finds a place to her tastes here as she is a good influence for Ron. Hugs, loves to all, and best wishes to all who wish them. Scottie
Thanks to Ron’s sister jumping in and doing all the extra stuff I have been trying to do I can rest my back while doing my posting. I could get used to this. Hugs
tRump’s illegal war for profit to please the corporations he told to give him a billion dollars for his campaign and he would do what ever they asked. Wow US military young adults sold for tRump’s profit. Hugs
The $1,776 per person bonuses, unveiled by Trump in his nationwide address Wednesday night, will be covered with funding approved in the Big Beautiful Bill that passed in July, according to the congressional officials and later confirmed by the Pentagon. The payouts — which will cost roughly $2.6 billion — will be a “one-time basic allowance for housing supplement to all eligible service members,” said the official.
The Trump administration announced several moves Thursday that will have the effect of essentially banning gender-affirming care for transgender young people, even in states where it is still legal.
The second would block all Medicaid and Medicare funding for any services at hospitals that provide pediatric gender-affirming care.
Really stupid things say and blame democrats for just because they think it sounds good not realizing how dumb it seems.
As Democracy Docket previously reported, in his previous role as a prosecutor in the Los Angeles district attorney’s office, Neff was put on leave after bringing charges against an election software executive based on information from conspiracy-driven election denier group True the Vote. The saga ultimately cost taxpayers $5 million to settle a lawsuit over the flawed prosecution.
Neff is also affiliated with True The Vote, the far-right QAnon group featured in Dinesh D’Souza’s debunked “2000 Mules” film.
Slumped over in his chair at the Resolute desk, Trump’s face slackened—eyes drooping, the corners of his mouth sagging—as he fought off sleep. The elderly president has now been caught appearing to doze off at four official events in six weeks.
As many know I found this artist and her work on trans awareness as a grand resource to show how trans people / kids are being treated in our surging hateful nation. Below is a personal note from her. I wish her and her family the very best even as I will miss her voice supporting the trans people. Hugs
This year was the most prolific of my life, but also the most anxiety-inducing. I wrote and published a new novel and drew about two hundred pages of comics, as if to numb the things I was feeling. But life has ways to tell us we’re burning out.
I am not known for sharing much about my private life – probably a consequence of a whole decade of harassment and stalking from anti-trans zealots – but allow me to do it today. You might know that at the start of the pandemic, my husband and I decided to move into a century-old cabin in the woods. We have slowly been turning it into an artist retreat for trans and queer people. I really needed the seclusion, the quiet and the natural beauty of the place, especially after many years of being the target of hate campaigns, doxxing and death threats. This place that we call home has been a blessing, but it was always meant to be temporary.
Due to life and health situations, it’s now time for my husband and I to come back to civilisation. I won’t go into details, but I’ll just say that our nearest hospital is a 3h round trip drive, and that living 10h away from my husband’s relatives is becoming impossible. Furthermore, we still believe in our dream of turning that space into a retreat for trans and queer artists, but the renovations left to do are simply incompatible with my husband’s pregnancy.
That is why we are getting prepared to move back to the city. It’s a hard and lifechanging decision for us, but there is no avoiding it. It’s also going to be costly : another reason we moved in our current ruin of a home in the first place was to be able to focus more on making art and less on making rent. If you feel so enclined, you can contribute to our relocation effort by getting a coffee at www.ko-fi.com/sophielabelle or supporting my work at www.patreon.com/assignedmale . It always means the world to us, now more so than ever!
I’ve decided to spend the last few weeks of the year focusing on catching my breath, preparing for the move and trying to get through the 15 000 emails that I’ve let piled in my inbox since my beloved cat, my bestest friend, passed earlier this year, and hopefully finishing the children’s book I’ve been working on for way too long. I still have a few new comics lined up for the Holidays, so don’t expect me to stay quiet!
So that’s what’s up. Thank you for reading, thank you for being there, I love you all, even the ones who rage-read my comics. Keep shining!
1,300 bed concentration camp with no way out just for not being able to pay the rent. If you watch the video you see these anti-homeless lock them up solutions to make homeless disappear are coming from right wing billionaire funded think tanks. Again this is a war on the poor. And seriously with costs going up how long until being poor is anyone the wealthy don’t like. So many dystopian movies have this same start. Hugs
Albert Spier’s Proposed Giant Arch for Hitler’s Berlin
“He says such horrible things. You have to wonder how he sleeps at televised afternoon meetings.”
They are the same thing. This is what bigotry, hate, and watching Fox / right wing media causes.
The pilot of a JetBlue flight reported on Friday that he narrowly avoided colliding with a U.S. military aircraft over the Caribbean after an Air Force refueling tanker passed in front of the commercial plane without broadcasting its position, according to air traffic control radio communications.
AP Photo/Jerome Delay
Civilians risked their lives to cross Sarajevo’s main boulevard during the Bosnian warCHRISTOPHE SIMON/AFP
MICHAEL EVSTAFIEV/AFP
Scottie's Playtime 