President Zoran Milanovic and his aides, who are seeking Croatia's expulsion from NATO, are abusing the chief of staff of the armed forces and politicising the army, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said in Brussels on Wednesday.

The prime minister was commenting on the move by Defence Minister Ivan Anusic and members of the ruling coalition to leave a meeting of the parliamentary defence committee because, as Anusic claimed, Milanovic had forbidden the army chief of staff, General Tihomir Kundid, from attending the committee meeting to explain where the two officers the government wants to send to the NATO mission “Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine” (NSATU) should be deployed.

“This is no longer about the question of whether we send two officers to the NSATU mission, but about whether Milanovic and his aides want Croatia in NATO,” said Plenkovic on his arrival in Brussels for a summit of EU countries and six Gulf states.

“This is a lie from Milanovic and his aides”

The Prime Minister reiterated that Croatian officers would not be sent to Ukraine.

“This is a lie by Milanovic and his aides, who want to exclude us from NATO, bring dishonour to Croatia and undermine its international credibility and reputation,” he said.

“This is the politicisation of the Croatian military, the Chief of General Staff is prevented from speaking in front of the Defence Committee and explaining to MPs what the mission is about. If the opposition does not believe the government, if it does not believe its own eyes, then the Chief of Defence Staff should be the one who can tell the truth,” he said.

Plenkovic went on to say that President Milanovic, who is also the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, refused to allow the then Chief of the General Staff, Admiral Robert Hranj, to speak at the last session of the Defence Council. He added that it was therefore harder for him to believe that Hranj had agreed to be an adviser to the Social Democratic Party.

“We should get rid of Milanovic in the election”

“I have not said this before, but what happened today is a signal that this could happen again. As a society and as an institution, we must not allow this and we should get rid of Milanovic in the election,” said Plenkovic, calling on opposition MPs to exercise “common sense” and vote in favour of the government’s proposal for Croatia’s participation in the NSATU mission, which now requires a two-thirds majority, i.e. 101 votes, to override Milanovic’s veto.

“We hope that these people can read, that they know what is in the resolution, that they know that Wiesbaden is in Germany and that we are not sending our soldiers to Ukraine, let alone going to war with Russia,” said Plenkovic.