Slobodan Milošević in the context of "Federal Republic of Yugoslavia"

The Republic of Serbia (Serbo-Croatian: Република Србија / Republika Srbija) was a constituent state of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia between 1992 and 2003 and the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro from 2003 to 2006. With Montenegro's secession from the union with Serbia in June 2006, both became sovereign states in their own right for the first time in nearly 88 years.

After the League of Communists of Yugoslavia collapsed in 1990, the Socialist Republic of Serbia led by Slobodan Milošević's Socialist Party (formerly the Communists) adopted a new constitution, declaring itself a constituent republic with democratic institutions within Yugoslavia, and the "Socialist" adjective was dropped from the official title. As Yugoslavia broke up, in 1992 Serbia and Montenegro formed a new federative state called the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, known after 2003 as simply Serbia and Montenegro.

The State Union of Serbia and Montenegro (often shortened to Serbia and Montenegro), known until 2003 as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) and commonly referred to as Yugoslavia, was a country in Southeast Europe located in the Balkans that existed from 1992 to 2006, following the breakup of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFR Yugoslavia). The state was established on 27 April 1992 as a federation comprising the Republic of Serbia and the Republic of Montenegro. In February 2003, it was transformed from a federal republic to a political union until Montenegro seceded from the union in June 2006, leading to the full independence of both Serbia and Montenegro.

Its aspirations to be the sole legal successor state to the SFR Yugoslavia were not recognized by the United Nations, following the passing of United Nations Security Council Resolution 777, which affirmed that the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia had ceased to exist, and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was a new state. All former republics were entitled to state succession while none of them continued the SFR Yugoslavia's international legal personality. However, the government of Slobodan Milošević opposed any such claims, and as such, the FR Yugoslavia was not allowed to join the United Nations.

The Yugoslav Wars were a series of separate but related ethnic conflicts, wars of independence and insurgencies that took place from 1991 to 2001 in what had been the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFR Yugoslavia). The conflicts both led up to and resulted from the breakup of Yugoslavia, which began in mid-1991, into six independent countries matching the six entities known as republics that had previously constituted Yugoslavia: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, and Macedonia (now called North Macedonia). SFR Yugoslavia's constituent republics declared independence due to rising nationalism. Unresolved tensions between ethnic minorities in the new countries led to the wars. While most of the conflicts ended through peace accords that involved full international recognition of new states, they resulted in a massive number of deaths as well as severe economic damage to the region.

During the initial stages of the breakup of Yugoslavia, the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) sought to preserve the unity of the Yugoslav nation by eradicating all nationalists in the governments of the republics. However, it increasingly came under the influence of Slobodan Milošević, whose government invoked Serbian nationalism as an ideological replacement for the weakening communist system. As a result, the JNA began to lose Slovenes, Croats, Kosovar Albanians, Bosniaks, and Macedonians, and effectively became a fighting force of only Serbs and Montenegrins. According to a 1994 report by the United Nations (UN), the Serb side did not aim to restore Yugoslavia; instead, it aimed to create a "Greater Serbia" from parts of Croatia and Bosnia. Other irredentist movements have also been brought into connection with the Yugoslav Wars, such as "Greater Albania" (from Kosovo, idea abandoned following international diplomacy) and "Greater Croatia" (from parts of Herzegovina, abandoned in 1994 with the Washington Agreement).

The Kosovo War (Albanian: Lufta e Kosovës; Serbian: Косовски рат, Kosovski rat) was an armed conflict in Kosovo that lasted from 28 February 1998 until 11 June 1999. It was fought between the forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), which controlled Kosovo before the war, and the Kosovo Albanian separatist militia known as the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). The conflict ended when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) intervened by beginning air strikes in March 1999 which resulted in Yugoslav forces withdrawing from Kosovo.

The KLA was formed in the early 1990s to fight against the discrimination of ethnic Albanians and the repression of political dissent by the Serbian authorities, which started after the suppression of Kosovo's autonomy and other discriminatory policies against Albanians by Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević in 1989. The KLA initiated its first campaign in 1995, after Kosovo's case was left out of the Dayton Agreement and it had become clear that President Rugova's strategy of peaceful resistance had failed to bring Kosovo onto the international agenda. In June 1996, the group claimed responsibility for acts of sabotage targeting Kosovo police stations, during the Kosovo Insurgency. In 1997, the organization acquired a large quantity of arms through weapons smuggling from Albania, following a rebellion in which weapons were looted from the country's police and army posts. In early 1998, KLA attacks targeting Yugoslav authorities in Kosovo resulted in an increased presence of Serb paramilitaries and regular forces who subsequently began pursuing a campaign of retribution targeting KLA sympathisers and political opponents; this campaign killed 1,500 to 2,000 civilians and KLA combatants, and had displaced 370,000 Kosovar Albanians by March 1999.

The Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo, referred to simply as Kosovo, SAP Kosovo or SAPK, was one of the two autonomous provinces of the Socialist Republic of Serbia within Yugoslavia (the other being Vojvodina), between 1945 and 1990, when it was renamed Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija.

Between 1945 and 1963 it was officially named the Autonomous Region of Kosovo and Metohija, with a level of self-government lower than that of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina. In 1963 it was granted the same level of autonomy as Vojvodina, and accordingly its official name was changed to Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija. In 1968 the term "Metohija" was dropped, and the prefix "Socialist" was added, changing the official name of the province to Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo. In 1974 both autonomous provinces (Vojvodina and Kosovo) were granted significantly increased levels of autonomy. In 1989, under the presidency of Slobodan Milošević, that level of autonomy was reduced. In 1990 the term "Metohija" was reinserted into the provincial name, with "Socialist" being dropped. From that point on the official name of the province was once again Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija, as it had been between 1963 and 1968.

The Socialist Party of Serbia (Serbian: Социјалистичка партија Србије, romanized: Socijalistička partija Srbije, abbr. SPS) is a social democratic and populist political party in Serbia. Ivica Dačić, the former prime minister of Serbia, has led SPS as its president since 2006.

SPS was founded in 1990 as a merger of the League of Communists of Serbia and Socialist Alliance of Working People of Yugoslavia with Slobodan Milošević as its first president. In the 1990 general elections, SPS became the ruling party of Serbia while Milošević was elected president of Serbia. During Milošević's rule, SPS relied on the Serbian Radical Party (SRS) from 1992 to 1993 while it later led several coalition governments with SRS, New Democracy, and Yugoslav Left. Mass protests against SPS were held in 1991, and after being accused of falsifying votes in major urban cities, such as Belgrade and Niš, 1996–1997 protests were also organised. The Democratic Opposition of Serbia coalition defeated SPS in the 2000 general elections but Milošević declined to accept the results. This resulted in Milošević's overthrow.

The League of Communists of Serbia (Serbian: Савез комуниста Србије, romanized: Savez komunista Srbije, abbr. SKS), known as the Communist Party of Serbia (Serbian: Комунистичка партија Србије, romanized: Komunistička partija Srbije, abbr. KPS) until 1952, was the ruling political party of Serbia from 1945 to 1990. It was the Serbian branch of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, known until 1952 as the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. The two autonomous provinces within Serbia had their own branches of the federal party: the League of Communists of Kosovo and the League of Communists of Vojvodina.

The republic-level branches of Kosovo and Vojvodina were associated with the League of Communists of Serbia as its "integral parts". Under the 1974 Yugoslav Constitution, greater power was devolved to these republic-level branches. Following the 8th Session of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Serbia in 1987, the party was taken over by the populist faction led by Slobodan Milošević. Milošević appeased nationalists in Serbia by promising to reduce the level of autonomy within the autonomous provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina. This policy increased ethnic tensions with the other republics and nationalities and led to the Yugoslav Wars. During the early 1990s, the growing ethnic tensions between the republics of Yugoslavia led to the break-up of the federal party.