The Americans and the Russians were waging a "proxy war" at the expense of Ukraine and they will eventually have to negotiate to put an end to it, President Zoran Milanovic said on Monday.

Commenting on Tuesday’s first parliamentary summit meeting of the International Crimea Platform in Zagreb, Milanovic, who was visiting the coastal town of Makarska, said that he could see “a lot of cynicism and dishonesty towards the Ukrainian people and regarding the war in general” and that he did not want to contribute to it.

“It (the summit) is a parliamentary initiative which revolves around this tragedy in Ukraine. Eventually the Americans and the Russians will have to sit at the negotiating table as they are waging a proxy war at the expense of Ukraine,” Milanovic said, wondering why “no one dares to say it.”

The head of state is currently in Makarska and will not meet the visiting U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives of the US Congress, Nancy Pelosi, in Zagreb.

As for assistance to Ukraine, Milanovic said that the EU should have sent billions of euros to Ukraine in the previous years to help it develop and uproot corruption and political extremism “which was present there more than anywhere else”.

He reiterated his opposition to the training of Ukrainian troops in Croatia.

“Combat training – for anybody who has any understanding of law and neutrality – actually means taking sides in that war and de facto taking part in it,” Milanovic said.

He said that Croatia is being treated as “a country that is not serious”, adding that as a member of NATO, Croatia has obligations towards other NATO members but that it does not have the obligation of military engagement with regard to countries that are not NATO members.