[1] The base had significant importance, with its strategically located Celopek intercept and surveillance radar on Mount Pljesevica, at the nerve center of an advanced integrated air defence network covering the airspace and territory of Yugoslavia.

Indeed, during the withdrawal of the Yugoslav People's Army, the latter destroyed the runway of the airbase by filling pre-built spaces (designed for the purpose) with explosives and detonating them.

To prevent any possible further use of the complex by Croatian and Bosnia-Herzegovinan forces, the Serbian Army of Krajina completed the destruction in 1992 by setting off an additional 56 tonnes of explosives.

Four bomb disposal experts (Dušan Bulešić, Stevo Grbić, Vicalj Marjanović and Marijan Vinković, members of the Ministry of the Interior and the 119th Istria Brigade) died in the process of demining, after the Croatians decided to relieve the airport.

[2][3] After tensions, night shootings, blackouts and air raids in November and December, the JNA definitively left Pula (and Istria) on 16 December 1991, a few days before the bombing of the Crljenka,[4][5] after a team of negotiators led by Luciano Delbianco managed to maintain peace while the city was occupied, avoid its destruction, and negotiate a peaceful removal of the JNA army.

[6][5][4] Peace in Pula was maintained, and success of the negotiations achieved, also thanks to the "presence of honorable men on the other side of the table":[5] Admiral Pogačnik and Admiral Barović, with Barović famously stating "Any destruction won't be conducted here while I'm in command, and if I am still forced to order the destruction of Pula and Istria, then I will no longer be here.