After the ceasefire of January 1992 and international recognition of the Republic of Croatia as a sovereign state,[38][39] the front lines were entrenched, the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) was deployed,[40] and combat became largely intermittent in the following three years.

The Serbian and Croatian governments began to progressively cooperate with each other, but tensions remain, in part due to verdicts by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and lawsuits filed by each country against the other.

[45][46] In 2007, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) returned a guilty verdict against Milan Martić, one of the Serb leaders in Croatia, for having colluded with Slobodan Milošević and others to create a "unified Serbian state".

[56] SR Serbia, headed by Slobodan Milošević, adhered to centralism and single-party rule, and in turn effectively ended the autonomy of the autonomous provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina by March 1989, taking command of their votes in the Yugoslav federal presidency.

President Tuđman announced his manifesto for a new Constitution (ratified at the end of the year) and a multitude of political, economic, and social changes, notably to what extent minority rights (mainly for Serbs) would be guaranteed.

[81] This, combined with Tuđman's remarks, i.e. "Thank God my wife is not a Jew or a Serb",[82] were distorted by Milošević's media to spark fear that any form of an independent Croatia would be a new "Ustashe state".

In one instance, TV Belgrade showed Tuđman shaking hands with German Chancellor Helmut Kohl (who would be the first government leader in the world to recognise independent Croatia and Slovenia) accusing the two of plotting "a Fourth Reich".

[94] According to Jović, on 27 June 1990 he and Veljko Kadijević, the Yugoslav Defence Minister, met and agreed that they should, regarding Croatia and Slovenia, "expel them forcibly from Yugoslavia, by simply drawing borders and declaring that they have brought this upon themselves through their decisions".

[98] After it was discovered that Martin Špegelj had pursued a campaign to acquire arms through the black market in January 1991 an ultimatum was issued requesting disarming and disbanding of Croatian military forces considered illegal by the Yugoslav authorities.

The Croatian Army had only a handful of tanks, including World War II-surplus vehicles such as the T-34, and its Air Force was in an even worse state, consisting of only a few Antonov An-2 biplane crop-dusters that had been converted to drop makeshift bombs.

On 9 April 1991, Croatian President Tuđman ordered the special police forces to be renamed Zbor Narodne Garde ("National Guard"); this marks the creation of a separate military of Croatia.

[168] As the war progressed, the cities of Dubrovnik, Gospić, Šibenik, Zadar, Karlovac, Sisak, Slavonski Brod, Osijek, Vinkovci, and Vukovar all came under attack by Yugoslav forces.

[169][170][171][172] The United Nations (UN) imposed a weapons embargo; this did not affect JNA-backed Serb forces significantly, as they had the JNA arsenal at their disposal, but it caused serious trouble for the newly formed Croatian army.

[194] In response to the 5th JNA Corps advance across the Sava River towards Pakrac and further north into western Slavonia,[195] the Croatian army began a successful counterattack in early November 1991, its first major offensive operation of the war.

The confrontation culminated in the Battle of the Dalmatian channels, when Croatian coastal and island based artillery damaged, sank, or captured a number of Yugoslav navy vessels, including Mukos PČ 176, later rechristened PB 62 Šolta.

[227][228] Retreating Serb forces detonated three of explosive charges totaling 5 tons within the 65-meter (213 ft) high dam in an attempt to cause it to fail and flood the area downstream.

The matters under discussion included opening the Serb-occupied part of the Zagreb–Slavonski Brod motorway near Okučani to transit traffic, as well as the putative status of Serbian-majority areas within Croatia.

[252] Michael Williams, an official of the UN peacekeeping force, said that when the village of Vedro Polje west of Bihać had fallen to a RSK unit in late November 1994, the siege entered the final stage.

The move was purportedly motivated by actions by Serbia and the Serb-dominated Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to provide assistance to the Serb occupation of Croatia and allegedly integrate the occupied areas into Yugoslav territory.

[261] The Yugoslav army responded to the offensive with a show of force, moving tanks towards the Croatian border, in an apparent effort to stave off a possible attack on the occupied area in Eastern Slavonia.

[282] Further combat was averted on 12 November when the Erdut Agreement was signed by the RSK acting defense minister Milan Milanović,[13][283] on instructions received from Slobodan Milošević and Federal Republic of Yugoslavia officials.

[26] Ivo Goldstein mentions 13,583 killed or missing,[311] while Anglo-Croatian historian Marko Attila Hoare reports the number to be 15,970[312] (citing figures from January 2003 presented by scientific researcher Dražen Živić).

[328] The Belgrade-based non-government organization Veritas lists 7,134 killed and missing from the Republic of Serbian Krajina, including 4,484 combatants and 2,650 civilians, and 307 JNA members who were not born or lived in Croatia.

It further found that a joint criminal enterprise existed, in which the common criminal purpose was shared by senior political, military, and police leadership in Serbia, SAO Krajina, SAO SBWS, and Republika Srpska, with core members being Slobodan Milošević, Radmilo Bogdanović, Radovan Stojičić (Badža), Mihalj Kertes, Milan Martić, Milan Babić, Goran Hadžić, Radovan Karadžić, Ratko Mladić, Momčilo Krajišnik, Biljana Plavšić, and Željko Ražnatović (Arkan)....

Another infamous instance of war crimes, in what would later become known as the "Pakračka Poljana" case, committed by a reserve police unit commanded by Tomislav Merčep, involved the killing of prisoners, mostly ethnic Serbs, near Pakrac in late 1991 and early 1992.

Following the independence of various republics from SFR Yugoslavia, Serbia provided the bulk of manpower and funding that was channeled to the war effort through Serbian control of the Yugoslav presidency and the federal defense ministry.

[122][123] Even though no actual fighting occurred on Serbian or Montenegrin soil, involvement of the two was evident through the maintenance of prison camps in Serbia and Montenegro, which became places where a number of war crimes were committed.

[125] In 1993, the US State Department reported that right after the Maslenica and Medak pocket operations, authorities in Serbia dispatched substantial numbers of "volunteers" to Serb-held territories in Croatia to fight.

[405][404] According to professor Renaud De la Brosse, senior lecturer at the University of Reims and a witness called by the ICTY, it is surprising how great the resistance to Milošević's propaganda was among Serbs, given that and the lack of access to alternative news.

[411] In a case before the International Court of Justice, Croatia filed a suit against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia on 2 July 1999, citing Article IX of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.