Belgrade has changed over the past week, with Serbs now convinced that NATO wants to punish ordinary citizens as much as the military and Mr Milosevic. There is a new anger here, but also an acceptance that the war will drag on.
"They'll start bombing bakeries next," one civil servant predicted, "because the military also eat bread." A Serb journalist commented to me sarcastically: "There are three Milosevic supporters among my neighbours. They are old, but should I throw them out in the street so NATO won't bomb my building?"
As we walked back to our hotel during an air raid alert late one evening, we overheard two passers-by strike up a conversation. "If Clinton wants Milosevic, let him take him," one said. "The people here hate this government. But leave us alone!"
Until recently, the war felt far away from the capital. Now conscripts wearing stiff new camouflage uniforms and rucksacks have become a common sight in shops and cafes. The statistics office that prepares the call-up lists is working 24 hours a day, and military police with handcuffs hanging from their belts go door to door looking for young men. Within a small circle of acquaintances, at least 10 young men were drafted in as many days, including a Jewish rabbi, a computer programmer and a television soundman. Some of the soldiers are nervous about being stationed in the part of Belgrade where President Slobodan Milosevic is rumoured to have his bunker.
Serbs have realised that their Slavic and Orthodox friends in Russia can do little to help them in the war with NATO. "Our Russian brothers needn't worry," a graffiti slogan that has cropped up around the city says with bitter irony. "Their Serb brothers will stand by them."
Two peace missions to Belgrade by Russians last week were greeted with utter indifference by the population. Georgije, our taxi driver, typifies the Serbs' shifting emotions. Two weeks ago he panicked at rumours that Russia was about to invade Yugoslavia. The following day, he was elated because his country had declared union with Russia and Belarus - they would "defeat the fascist aggressors [NATO] together", he announced. But yesterday, Georgije was cursing Moscow for allowing things to get so bad here.
Residents of the Serbian capital attributed two peaceful nights to NATO's 50th anniversary summit in Washington. The alliance's leaders did not want to upstage their own meeting by destroying another important building on Saturday or Sunday, Belgraders presumed. But no one here doubts the attacks will recommence soon. The hotel porter who carried cases of mineral water to our room walked over to the window. "Look at Branko Most," he said gloomily, pointing downward at the nearest of the city's four bridges. "You won't see it much longer."
While Belgrade nursed its wounds, the rest of Serbia was not spared. The chemical plant at Lucani was attacked for at least the eighth time; NATO says it produced explosives. Nis and Pristina were also heavily bombed.
Using cranes and diggers, civil defence workers laboured throughout the weekend to remove the rubble of the state-run Radio Televizja Srbije (RST) building that was destroyed by NATO on Friday; the death toll has risen to 17 and some employees are still missing. At a demonstration on Saturday, protesters carried a banner with the slogan, "Belgrade is the World" - the very same banner seen at marches opposing President Slobodan Milosevic in late 1997 and early 1998. Now the banner is directed against NATO.
The alliance says it wants to stifle Mr Milosevic's "propaganda machine", but many Serbs believe the destruction of RTS and further bombardments of television transmitters at the weekend is a personal vendetta by President Bill Clinton and other western leaders who have been mocked by Serb television. The night before it was destroyed, Kosava Television - owned by Mr Milosevic's daughter Marija - broadcast a pornographic film with Clinton and Monica Lewinsky lookalikes engaging in oral sex and smoking a cigar.
In practical terms, NATO's strategy of bombing television stations and transmitters - combined with the Serbs' expulsion of several foreign correspondents - mean the outside world will know less and less about the war. Most of the images of NATO attacks broadcast on Western television were shot by Serb cameramen. Without explanation, Mr Milosevic's State Security police expelled three British correspondents from Yugoslavia on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. They are Tom Walker of the London Times, Chris Bird of the Guardian and Guy Dinmore of the Financial Times. It is not clear if the expulsions were retaliation for NATO's bombing of RTS, or why the three correspondents - all long based in Belgrade - were chosen.