ZAGREB, 11 March (2022) - President Zoran Milanović said on Friday that an unmanned aerial vehicle's crash in Zagreb was a serious incident, and the assessment is that the incident was not directed against Croatia, and that it was likely that control had been lost over the drone that had probably come from Ukraine.
The unmanned aerial vehicle fell in the area of Jarun, and fortunately there were no human casualties, the president said at an extraordinary news conference.
An investigation is under way to establish how it could happen that a six-tonne aerial vehicle, the size of an aircraft, had not been detected why flying all the way from Ukraine to Zagreb, he said.
The assessments show that the incident was not directed against Croatia and that the aerial vehicle departed from Ukraine and flew over two NATO member states -- Romania and Hungary -- before entering Croatia's airspace.
How could it happen that an unsophisticated aerial vehicle had flown unnoticed nearly an hour in the airspace of NATO member states, the president wondered.
Military services have been included in the investigation. It seems now that the aerial vehicle had flown from Ukraine, fell in Zagreb when it ran out of fuel and control over it was lost, said the president.
Milanović convened the press conference after being briefed by the chief of the General Staff of the Armed Services and the directors of security and intelligence agencies. Milanović said that he had also spoken with Prime Minister Andrej Plenković.
The president said that radars in Croatia had detected the object which was in the Croatian airspace for a brief period.
He also said that this was not the right time to call out anybody over the incident.
The president also did not find it necessary to convene the National Security Council which, he said, is not an operational agency.
He described the state of affairs in the national air defence system as unsatisfactory, however in such an extraordinary and unpredictable situation, Croatia depends on partners and members of NATO, and omissions were made there, he concluded.
Milanović commented that no international media outlets had reported about this incident.
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