DistantNews
Support us
🇭🇷 Croatia /Elections & Politics

Vučić fires back at Plenković: ‘Congratulations to the Croats on their patriotism, good riddance’

From Večernji List · () Croatian

Translated from Croatian and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Named sources Context piece
  • Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić sharply criticized Croatia after Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said Serbia had not fully confronted its wartime past, including its treatment of Ratko Mladić.
  • Vučić accused Croatia of glorifying Nazism and said Nazi salutes were being presented as patriotic expressions.
  • Plenković had said Serbia’s state-backed farewell for Mladić showed that the country had not undergone the required political and social reckoning and was moving farther from the European path.

Aleksandar Vučić responded to Andrej Plenković with a broadside against Croatia, accusing it of glorifying Nazism decades after World War II. The Serbian president was answering comments by Croatia’s prime minister about Serbia’s handling of its wartime past and the legacy of Ratko Mladić.

“Nobody could ever have imagined that anyone would glorify Nazism after 1945 as the Croats do,” Vučić said, describing Croatia as “a unique country in the world” on that account. He said the practice continued in the present, claiming that Croatia glorified Nazism in 2025 and 2026 and would do so in 2045 as well.

Nobody could ever have imagined that anyone would glorify Nazism after 1945 as the Croats do.

· Aleksandar VučićThe Serbian president accused Croatia of continuing to glorify Nazism.

Vučić particularly objected to what he said was Croatia’s justification of such conduct as patriotism. “That is a unique case in the world and a unique country in the world, but as they say, ‘these are patriotic songs,’ ‘Sieg Heil,’ but there was a worse salute than Sieg Heil, and that is ‘For the Homeland Ready,’” he said. “Congratulations to them on that patriotism, good riddance.”

That is a unique case in the world and a unique country in the world, but as they say, ‘these are patriotic songs,’ ‘Sieg Heil,’ but there was a worse salute than Sieg Heil, and that is ‘For the Homeland Ready.’ Congratulations to them on that patriotism, good riddance.

· Aleksandar VučićVučić criticized Croatia’s alleged presentation of Nazi salutes as patriotic expressions.

His remarks followed Plenković’s criticism of Serbia after the death of Mladić, the former commander of the Army of Republika Srpska. The Hague tribunal convicted Mladić of genocide in Srebrenica and other war crimes committed during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, sentencing him to life in prison.

Plenković said giving Mladić’s funeral a state character showed that Serbia had not completed the political and social reckoning needed to move beyond its past. He also said the treatment of Mladić was taking Serbia farther from the European path and that this view was shared by other European actors, not only Croatia.

Serbia has not emerged from its reckoning and has not taken a single step forward.

· Andrej PlenkovićThe Croatian prime minister criticized Serbia’s treatment of its wartime past.
About this summary

Originally published by Večernji List in Croatian. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

More Stories

From Our Blog