President Milanović: This is a terribly dangerous situation, the problem is that Russia has not been economically broken

21. September 2022.
16:10

“Since the beginning I have been warning that this is a terribly dangerous situation. As for nuclear weapons, Putin repeats this every so often and I do not see it as the main problem at the moment. But I see a problem because Russia has not been economically broken, and should have been in a couple of months. This gives Putin political room at home, it gives him time to take the following step, one he did not count on, but has room for manoeuvre. Therefore, this will go on for some time”, the President of the Republic Zoran Milanović said in commenting to the media Russian President Vladimir Putin’s speech and his threats of nuclear weapons.

The President reminded that he has “a very clear history of relations with all those people” and he can say what he thinks. “When others were sucking up, I kept a distance and a cold head. Now I am exclusively being led by Croatian interests, and they are peace and security”, he added.

“Croatia does not have nuclear weapons, is not a nuclear power. Croatia is a member of NATO that has Article 5 regarding the commitment of mutual guarantees for which a special decision is made. Any message except one of loyalty with those in trouble would be wrong. We are loyal to the Poles, the Baltic states because NATO members are NATO members. Ukraine is not a member of NATO. We have to always take our commitments into account”, the President of the Republic explained.

The President was asked by journalists whether Croatia has a plan in case of a nuclear war since people in Croatia are troubled. “Naturally they are troubled. If you are asking me about the readiness of the shelters, we have them, but I do not wish to think whether they would be necessary, or that we would be targets. Why would we be targets? We have to be careful about what we say because these are serious matters”, he replied.

President Milanović also commented the dismissal of INA’s management board. “Those people, unfortunately, did not do a good job. What happened should not have happened and that is objective responsibility”, President Milanović stated among others.