President Zoran Milanovic on Friday said that NATO should not expand to include Ukraine.

“While I’m the president, I will be opposed to NATO expanding anywhere,” Milanovic told reporters on Friday.

The statement, which is contrary to NATO’s “open door policy”, comes at a time when tensions between Russia, which has been amassing troops on the border with Ukraine, and Western countries, which are warning against a possible invasion of that country, are coming to the boil.

To withdraw its troops, Russia is asking, among other things, for guarantees that NATO will not expand to include Ukraine.

“I think that anyone advocating NATO’s enlargement to Ukraine threatens also Croatian interests. We are in NATO and tomorrow someone could order our people to be deployed there,” explained Milanovic.