A wreath-laying and candle-lighting ceremony was held at the monument to Croatia's victory in the 1995 Operation Storm in the town of Knin on Thursday, the first in a number of events that will mark Victory and Homeland Thanksgiving Day and Croatian Veterans Day and the 26th anniversary of the combined military and police offensive.

Operation Storm ended an armed rebellion by local Serbs, helping restore state sovereignty in occupied central and southern parts of the country and enabling the peaceful reintegration of eastern Croatia in January 1998.

Wreaths were laid together by Croatian President Zoran Milanovic with a delegation of local self-government units, led by Sibenik-Knin County Prefect Marko Jelic.

Separately, wreaths were laid by delegations of the national parliament, led by Speaker Gordan Jandrokovic, and the government, led by Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic.

Wreaths were also laid by associations of families of the Homeland War victims.

The ceremony will be followed by addresses by Milanovic, Plenkovic, and Jandrokovic, after which a live stream of the traditional hoisting of the Croatian flag at the Knin Fortress overlooking the town will be broadcast.

The Croatian Air Force aerobatic team The Wings of Storm is expected to perform a display above the Knin Fortress during the ceremony. The commemoration programme also includes a performance by the Croatian Navy harmony singing group “St George”.

After the main ceremony , participants in the event will attend a religious service for the homeland in a local church. The programme will end with a fireworks display in the evening.

Operation Storm was launched on 4 August 1995, liberating the areas of northern Dalmatia, Lika, Banovina, and Kordun that had been controlled by Serb insurgents for four years.

In only 84 hours, Croatian forces, about 200,000 strong, regained control of slightly less than 10,500 kilometres of territory, almost one-fifth of the country, which also helped put an end to the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina and enabled the peaceful reintegration of the Croatian Danube region.

The operation was launched at 5 am on 4 August along the line running from Bosansko Grahovo to the south to Jasenovac to the east, the front line being more than 630 kilometres long.

The operation culminated on 5 August, when the Croatian Army’s 4th and 7th Guard Brigades liberated Knin, until then the stronghold of rebel Serb forces.

In the following days, Croatian forces took control of the state border and launched a mop-up operation in the liberated areas. At 6 pm on 6 August, the then Defence Minister Gojko Susak declared the end of the offensive.

With Operation Storm, Croatian forces enabled the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina to lift the siege of the northwestern town of Bihac, thus helping prevent a humanitarian catastrophe and war crimes similar to the Srebrenica genocide.

The Homeland War Memorial and Documentation Centre says that 196 Croatian soldiers were killed, at least 1,100 were wounded and 15 went missing in the operation, while losses among Serb forces were several times higher.