Croatia's President, Zoran Milanovic, said on Friday that a Soviet-made reconnaissance drone which crashed in Zagreb on Thursday night constituted "a serious incident" and that an investigation was underway. The incident is considered as an accident and the event "was not directed against Croatia," Milanovic added.

Milanovic convened a news conference on Friday after being briefed by the head of the General Staff of the Armed Services and directors of security and intelligence agencies. Milanovic said that he had also spoken with Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic about the event.

“We did not receive any notification. The UAV had flown over Hungary for more than 40 minutes, then spent less than 7 minutes in Croatian airspace before crashing in the wider area of the Jarun neighborhood. This is a serious incident and an investigation is underway and we want to determine all the details,” said Milanovic, telling Croatians to remain calm.

“This wasn’t directed against Croatia, and luckily it was an incident that ended without any human casualties. However, certain procedural things have to be investigated to determine how did this incident occurred,” said Milanović.

Croatia is separated from Ukraine by Hungary, and Zagreb is around 600 kilometers from the closest part of the Ukrainian border. The drone has been identified as Tu-141, a large 6-ton Soviet-era unmanned aircraft currently used by Ukraine for reconnaissance flights, although some retired units warehoused by the Russian military are thought to have been used as decoys during the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Earlier on Friday, Markiyan Lubkivsky, a Ukrainian diplomat and advisor to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, told Croatian daily Jutarnji List that the drone did not belong to Ukraine.