That was no secret in Russia, as even the Russian state-owned media outlet RT has acknowledged. This plot line is entirely invented: Pristina airport at the time was controlled by Yugoslav Army, which turned it over to the Russians when they arrived. (The character of Aslan-bek "Bek" Yetkhoev, played by actor Gosha Kutsenko, is based on Yunus-bek Yevkurov, the recently retired head of the Russian republic of Ingushetia, who led the Russian special forces contingent involved in the 1999 Pristina airport incident). After that, they are to hold out until the Russian paratroopers arrive from Bosnia. In the film, a disgraced former Russian special forces officer, Aslan-bek "Bek" Yetkhoev, is tasked with a dangerous covert mission – to gather some of his former team members and take over Pristina airport from a group of marauding Kosovar Albanian militants (modeled on the Kosovo Liberation Army or KLA) who are using it as their headquarters.
So how does a filmmaker manage to turn a minor spat, during which not a shot was fired, into a blockbuster action thriller? Simple: just add a massive set-piece battle that never happened. Later, a contingent of British paratroopers arrived and, after a tense but short standoff, the Russians managed to get permission to participate in the peacekeeping mission, with their own sector to patrol in the northern part of the region. In fact, Russian paratroopers unexpectedly arrived at Pristina airport ahead of NATO peacekeeping forces on the morning of June 12, 1999. There’s just one problem: the film’s plot is a near-total fabrication, and it is packed with distortions and unsubtle propaganda.
Since its release, Russian state media and Kremlin-friendly organizations have praised it for portraying the “truth” about what took place at the end of the Kosovo conflict. That is the plot of “ The Balkan Line,” a military action drama film that was jointly produced by the culture ministries of Russia and Serbia, released in March and distributed by 20th Century Fox of Russia.