The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry slammed Croatian President Zoran Milanovic on Tuesday for his earlier statements regarding the war in Ukraine, saying Milanovic was questioning Ukraine's territorial integrity and that his statements were unacceptable.

“I wonder if Zoran Milanovic, with such rhetoric, could have become the president of his country in the 1990s, as Croatia struggled to preserve its statehood? Would his voters have agreed to close their eyes to the occupation of parts of their country? I doubt it,” Oleg Nikolenko, spokesman for the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, wrote on Facebook.

Milanovic said on Monday that “Crimea will never again be part of Ukraine,” claiming the precedent was set by the international community with regards to Serbia’s southern province of Kosovo, which unilaterally declared independence in 2008.

Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. Nearly all members of the international community, including Croatia, refuse to recognise Crimea as Russian territory.

“I remind you that due to external aggression, Croatia could have lost a third of its territory. However, thanks to their heroic struggle, the Croats were able to protect the independence of their country,” Nikolenko said.

Milanovic has been a vocal critic of Western policy in Ukraine, claiming on Monday that it was “deeply immoral what the West is doing” and that any involvement in the conflict would be “lethally dangerous.”

“We consider the statements of the President of Croatia, who actually questioned the territorial integrity of Ukraine, unacceptable. We also highly appreciate and thank the Croatian government and the Croatian people for their unwavering support of Ukrainians in their fight against Russian aggression,” he concluded.

In December, Croatian MPs rejected the proposal that the country should join an EU mission which would allow Ukrainian troops to be trained in Croatia. As the Croatian military commander-in-chief, Milanovic has strongly opposed the motion put forward by the government of Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, further deepening the rift in an already tenuous relationship between the two leaders.

After the government had failed to secure enough votes in parliament to pass the motion, Plenkovic warned that the President has become “a problem for Croatia’s foreign policy” and that his position was one of “irresponsible, foolish isolationism.”

“But that is not the policy of the Croatian government,” Plenkovic said then, adding that the government’s approach was based on respect of international law, supporting Ukraine, condemning the aggression, and working together with all the Western allies in expressing solidarity – be it political, diplomatic, economic, financial, technical, humanitarian, or military – towards Ukraine. “And we will continue to do that.”