President Milanović: No war atrocities committed in Ukraine

Croatian President Zoran Milanović said he did not wish to comment on Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom Croatian Foreign Minister Gordan Grlić Radman has called a war criminal.

Asked by the press to comment on Grlić Radman’s qualification, Milanović said, “Ask the minister what he meant by that. I have never commented on Putin, either before or now.”

“For me, there exists Russia as a very dangerous state, which is now evident. A state which should be dealt with differently,” he said, adding that Putin’s leaving will not change that fact.

A month ago, Milanović insulted Ukraine, saying the whole crisis is a part of the internal political situation in the US.

Milanović said there were crimes in every war but that in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, “there are no atrocities” such as those committed in Croatia’s Homeland War.

“For now there is none of that. God forbid it happened”, he said. His comments come in the face of reports of the shelling of maternity hospitals and theatres, forceful deportation of Ukrainians to Russia, and the siege of Mariupol where over 5000 civilians have been killed by Russian forces.

He went on to say that “at most, 70” Croatian soldiers would be deployed in Hungary, but only after he signs off on it, which “won’t be soon.”

He reiterated that he does not want Croatia to get involved in the Russia-Ukraine war “more than it has to by inertia.”

“That’s why I call for restraint. I know that moralists and people worried about the fate of every inch of the world won’t understand that, but I was elected to be Croatia’s president, not a cosmopolitan moralist,” Milanović said, adding that his duty is to be “selfishly focused on Croatia.”