Recent quotes:

In 1999 it was not a small, symbolic tripwire of U.S. troops that Putin was willing to risk confronting, but a NATO peacekeeping force of five brigades and more than 10,000 soldiers. NATO’s 79-day Kosovo air war had just wrapped up, and defeated Serbian troops were withdrawing from the region. Putin, then the Kremlin's intelligence chief and national security adviser, assured U.S. officials of Russia’s full cooperation in stabilizing the situation. Instead, he knew a convoy of Russian peacekeepers in Bosnia was deploying to Kosovo in advance of NATO forces to seize the Slatina airfield, where they would soon be reinforced by air transports carrying hundreds of Russian paratroopers. General Wesley Clark, the supreme allied commander, wanted to block the runways with Apache helicopters, and he sought authorization to turn back the Russian planes by force. British General Michael Jackson, who was the commander on the ground, famously rejected the orders, stating, “Sir, I’m not starting World War III for you.”