In May 1992, the JNA retreated to Bosnia and Herzegovina, less than 1 kilometre (0.62 miles) from the coast in some places, and handed over its equipment to the newly formed Army of Republika Srpska (VRS).

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) convicted two Yugoslav officers for their involvement in the siege and handed a third over to Serbia for prosecution.

Croatia also charged several former JNA or Yugoslav Navy officers and a former Bosnian Serb leader with war crimes, but no trials have yet resulted from these indictments.

[21] On 18 September, Đukanović threatened harsh punishment of deserters and those refusing to respond to the mobilization,[19] while calling to "draw the demarcation lines vis-à-vis the Croats once and for all".

"[27] The JNA tasked the 2nd Titograd Corps and the 9th Boka Kotorska Military-Maritime Sector (VPS)—both of which were elements of the 2nd Operational Group—with cutting off and capturing the Dubrovnik area.

[30] Major General Nojko Marinović, once commanding the 472nd Motorized Brigade and subordinate of Đurović, said that the JNA had killed the admiral because he opposed the offensive.

[32] The only regular military unit was a platoon armed with light infantry weapons that was stationed in the Napoleonic era Fort Imperial atop the Srđ Hill overlooking Dubrovnik.

[24] The JNA 2nd Corps destroyed the village of Ravno[45] before turning south towards Dubrovačko Primorje area, aiming to envelop Dubrovnik from the west.

[30] Croatian defences were nonexistent in Konavle and light in Dubrovačko Primorje—the only JNA casualties of the day occurred during a successful ZNG ambush in Čepikuće village.

[48] On 4 October, the JNA 2nd Corps captured Slano in Dubrovačko Primorje, interdicting the Adriatic Highway there and isolating Dubrovnik from the rest of Croatia.

[63] JNA artillery and the Yugoslav Navy resumed the bombardment of Dubrovnik between 9 and 12 November, targeting the Old Town, Gruž, Lapad and Ploče, as well as the Belvedere, Excelsior, Babin Kuk, Tirena, Imperial and Argentina hotels.

[52] These attacks were followed by a lull which lasted until the end of November when the European Community Monitoring Mission (ECMM) mediated in negotiations between the JNA and Croatian authorities in Dubrovnik.

The ECMM was withdrawn in mid-November after its personnel were attacked by the JNA, and the mediation was taken over by French State Secretary for Humanitarian Affairs Bernard Kouchner and UNICEF Mission Chief Stephan Di Mistura.

The convoy—which also carried the ECMM observers, at least 1,000 protesters, the President of the Presidency of Yugoslavia Stjepan Mesić and the former Prime Minister of Croatia Franjo Gregurić—was initially stopped by the Yugoslav frigate JRM Split between the islands of Brač and Šolta, and the next day by Yugoslav patrol boats off Korčula before the Armed Boats Squadron linked up with the fleet and escorted it to the Port of Dubrovnik in Gruž.

[60] The 6 December attack of the Old Town was met with strong protests from the international media, UNESCO Director-General Federico Mayor Zaragoza, Special Envoy of the Secretary-General of the United Nations Cyrus Vance and the ECMM on the day of the bombardment.

Marinović ordered HV artillery to fire directly onto the fortress and dispatched a special police unit to reinforce the Fort Imperial garrison.

[79] The only exception was the Dubrovnik area,[82] where the JNA attacked westward from Dubrovačko Primorje, pushing back elements of the HV's 114th and 116th Infantry Brigades and reaching the outskirts of Ston by the beginning of 1992.

The 4th Military District of the JNA, commanded by Strugar, aimed to capture Stolac and most of the eastern bank of the Neretva River south of Mostar.

[93] To counter the threat, the HV appointed General Janko Bobetko to command the Southern Front, encompassing the Herzegovina and Dubrovnik areas.

[61] Besides the protests made by Mayor Zaragoza, Vance and the ECMM,[74] 104 Nobel Prize laureates published a full-page advertisement in The New York Times on 14 January 1992 at the incentive of Linus Pauling, urging governments throughout the world to stop the unrestrained destruction by the JNA.

Radio Television of Serbia said that smoke rising from the Old Town was the result of automobile tyres set on fire by the population of Dubrovnik,[120] echoing Kadijević.

[127] In 2007, Montenegrin filmmaker Koča Pavlović released a documentary entitled Rat za mir (War for peace), covering the role of propaganda in the siege, testimonies of Morinj camp prisoners and interviews with JNA soldiers.

[16] Mihailo Crnobrnja, a former Yugoslav ambassador to the European Union, speculated that the siege was intended to force an end to blockades of JNA barracks in Croatia and to claim the Prevlaka Peninsula for Montenegro.

The trial and appeals process was completed in 2008, with a final verdict of conviction of crimes—including attacks on civilians, devastation not required by military necessity and violation of the laws and customs of war.

Following an insanity defence,[143] he was provisionally released on 2 June 2004 and the proceedings were transferred to the judiciary in Serbia in 2007 and he underwent psychiatric treatment at the Military Medical Academy in Belgrade.

[149] In October 2008, Croatia indicted Božidar Vučurević—the mayor of Trebinje and Bosnian Serb leader in eastern Herzegovina at the time of the offensive—for attacks against the civilian population of Dubrovnik.

[150] In 2009, Croatian authorities filed charges against ten JNA officers, including Cokić, Ružinovski, Strugar, Jokić, Zec and Kovačević.

[16] In 2012, Croatia indicted the commanding officer of the 3rd Battalion of the JNA 5th Motorized Brigade and charged him with arson for burning 90 houses, businesses and public buildings in Čilipi from 5 to 7 October 1991.

The Court noted that other documents prepared by the Dubrovnik Police Department, "although drawn up at the time of the events and not solely for the purposes of this case, they have not been corroborated by evidence from an independent source and appear only to refer to two deaths".

The judgement stated that the Court "concludes from the foregoing that it has been established that some killings were perpetrated by the JNA against the Croats of Dubrovnik between October and December 1991, although not on the scale alleged by Croatia".