Poland and Croatia will not send troops to any mission in Ukraine, Croatian President Zoran Milanović said today in Zagreb after meeting with Polish President Andrzej Duda.
"Poland said it would not send troops to any hypothetical mission to Ukraine that could very easily and very quickly turn into a combat mission. Poland clearly does not want to participate in that, nor does Croatia. It is a topic that can always be discussed, I am not in favor of treating some topics as taboo topics, but I believe that this is not the right path," Milanović told reporters in Zagreb.
He received Polish President Andrzej Duda, who is paying an official visit to Croatia today, at the invitation of the Croatian President.
"We are loyal to our allies in NATO, it is a bond of loyalty and fidelity in a way through our common membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the North Atlantic Treaty. And everything outside of that is a cold and unknown world, especially from the perspective of a country like Croatia, which we observe and in which we cannot interfere too much," Milanović added, his press service reported in a statement.
When asked by reporters how to end the war in Ukraine and how much the two presidents' positions on it differ, Milanović replied that they "are not here to negotiate or seek a solution, because that is not in their mandate or power, but to talk."
"Unfortunately, the solution will not be just. The war in Ukraine will, unfortunately, not end in a just way because it is unrealistic and we will return to the space of realpolitik that we have not known for the last thirty years. But that will be the only way to survive," Milanović assessed.
He praised relations between Poland and Croatia, both members of NATO and the EU, and pointed out that hundreds of thousands of Poles come to Croatia annually.
Polish President Andrzej Duda called on Croatia to increase the number of soldiers in the NATO mission in Poland and thanked Croatia for its soldiers participating in the mission, Croatian Radio and Television reported.
He also said that Poland wants the war in Ukraine to end with a "just and lasting peace" and assessed that it is important to strengthen European defense and weapons production capacity.
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