A NATO-led troop deployment ended the devastating war in Kosovo in 1999, but in the 25 years since then, attacks on Christian heritage have altered the cultural landscape of the region.

Photos taken in August show that several damaged churches and monasteries have been restored while others have disappeared completely.

This church was one of scores of Serbian cultural sites that have been vandalized or destroyed since the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR) arrived in June 1999 to end fighting between ethnic Serbs and Kosovar Albanians.

Much of the destruction of Kosovo's Orthodox churches was viewed as revenge for the Serbian targeting of mosques and other Islamic buildings used by Kosovars in the months of fighting before KFOR's arrival.

In recent years, KFOR has been credited with stamping out the destruction of churches that peaked in a wave of anti-Serb violence in 2004.

Since the 2004 unrest, the European Union, the United Nations Development Program, and other organizations have worked to restore many Serbian Orthodox churches inside Kosovo.

A representative of the peacekeeping operation told RFE/RL that as of summer 2024, "KFOR has gradually handed over the responsibility for the security of religious sites in Kosovo to the Kosovo Police."

The KFOR spokesperson noted the peacekeeping group still maintains a 24/7 guard of the Serbian Orthodox monastery in Decan, which has been described as one of Europe's most endangered heritage sites.

In the immediate aftermath of the 1999 KFOR intervention, some peacekeepers were accused of standing by as churches were targeted.

British writer Tim Judah witnessed French KFOR troops looking on as crowds looted a Serbian priest's home in Vushtrri in June 1999. The commander told Judah that his orders were "to let them pillage," while admitting to the journalist that such a command was "crazy."

Judah, who reported from the ground throughout much of the 1998-99 Kosovo War and its aftermath, says the attacks on Kosovo's churches are often misconstrued as an Islamic attack on Christianity.

"Religion does not come into this dispute, as some would like to claim. It is an issue pitting Albanians against Serbs -- it is not a religious issue at all," Judah told RFE/RL.

"When Orthodox churches have been attacked and vandalized it is because they are seen as symbols of Serbdom not of Christianity," the writer said.

"When Serbs attacked mosques in Kosovo, it was because they were Albanian not because they were Muslim," Judah added.

In recent years, however, some attacks on churches within Kosovo have been explicitly Islamist in nature.

According to KFOR, attacks on churches have dropped off in recent years, though in 2024 the peacekeeping group says some minor attacks were recorded.

"Some graffiti were written on the [Pec] Holy Trinity Church walls," a KFOR spokesperson told RFE/RL about a May incident. "Graffiti were also found in March on the remnants of an Orthodox church in Dojinice, where gravestones were damaged."

The spokesperson added that KFOR "stands ready to contribute to the security of cultural and religious heritage sites, if required."