A staunch critic of Western policy in Ukraine, Milanovitch stressed that he did not want his country, the EU’s newest member state, to face the potentially devastating consequences of the war in Ukraine.
Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014, will never become part of Ukraine again, Croatian President Zoran Milanovic said today, detailing his objections to military aid from Zagreb to Kyiv.
In December, Croatia’s parliament voted down a proposal to have the country join a European Union mission to support the Ukrainian military, reflecting deep rifts between President Milanovic and Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic.
A staunch critic of Western policy in Ukraine, Milanovitch stressed that he did not want his country, the EU’s newest member state, to face the potentially devastating consequences of the war in Ukraine.
What the West is doing to Ukraine “is deeply immoral because there is no solution (to the war), Milanovich told reporters during a visit to barracks in the eastern city of Petrinia, referring to the West’s military support for Kyiv.
He added that the arrival of German tanks in Ukraine will only serve to bring Russia closer to China.
“It is clear that Crimea will never become part of Ukraine again,” the Croatian president said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has pledged to restore Ukrainian sovereignty over Crimea, which was seized and annexed by Russia in 2014, in a move not recognized by most countries.
Moscow claims that a referendum held after Russian forces took over the peninsula showed that the people of the peninsula really want to be part of Russia. The referendum is not recognized by most countries.
Milanovich criticized Western countries for double standards in international politics, saying Russia would invoke what he called the international community’s “annexation of Kosovo” as justification for seizing parts of Ukraine.
The Croatian president was referring to Kosovo’s declaration of independence in 2008 after the 1998-1999 war in which NATO countries bombed Yugoslavia, which included Serbia and Montenegro, to protect Kosovo, where the majority of residents are Albanians.
“We recognized Kosovo against the will of a state (Serbia) to which Kosovo belonged,” he said, warning that he was not questioning Kosovo’s independence but the concept of two-steps from the West.
Milanovic, a former prime minister of Croatia from the Social Democratic Party (SDP), has adopted an anti-European stance since assuming the largely ceremonial post of president, aligning his policies with those of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and the Bosnian Serb separatist leader Milorad Dodik.
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