In questo giorno 30 anni fa, la Croazia ha lanciato l’Operazione Storm, un’offensiva militare decisiva di quattro giorni che ha liberato il territorio occupato, ha schiacciato l’insurrezione serba e alla fine ha portato alla fine delle guerre in Croazia e Bosnia-Erzegovina.

Croatia today marks the 30th anniversary of Operation Storm, a decisive military offensive launched on August 4, 1995, which restored control over about one-fifth of the country’s territory that had been held by rebel Serbs and Yugoslav Army forces since 1991. The operation is considered the most significant military victory in Croatian history and was commemorated this week with a large military parade in Zagreb, stretching along a 2.4-kilometre route down Vukovar Street.

Operation Storm not only dismantled the self-proclaimed Republic of Serbian Krajina but also had a decisive impact on the wider region. It broke the military balance in neighboring Bosnia and Herzegovina, where coordinated advances by the Croatian Army (HV), the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH), and the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) shattered Bosnian Serb lines in the west. This rapid shift on the battlefield accelerated the collapse of Serb-held positions and directly paved the way for the Dayton Peace Agreement later that year, which brought an end to the Bosnian War.

However, the operation also had a heavy humanitarian cost. Around 200,000 Serbs fled Croatia during and after the offensive, and according to the Croatian Helsinki Committee, 677 civilians, mostly Serbs, were killed during and shortly after the operation.

While Croatia commemorates Operation Storm as a hard-won victory and the restoration of its territorial integrity, the operation’s legacy remains complex and viewed differently across the region, particularly due to the humanitarian consequences that followed.

Ethnic cleansing.

Croats conveniently forget to mention they killed and ethnically cleansed a few hundred thousand Serbs during this valiant “war”.