ZAGREB, 13 April 2022 - The Soviet-era military drone that crashed in Zagreb last month was armed, it carrying a bomb in place of a camera, Nova TV reported on Tuesday night citing sources close to the investigation.

The TU-141 unmanned aerial vehicle crashed near a student dorm in the Jarun district of southwest Zagreb shortly after 11 pm on 10 March, damaging about 40 cars in a nearby car park, but injuring no one. It came from Ukraine, having flown over NATO members Romania and Hungary before crashing in the Croatian capital after running out of fuel. It remains unclear who launched it.

The Zagreb County Prosecutor's Office is due to announce the results of the investigation carried out so far at a press conference starting at 11 am on Wednesday.

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ZAGREB, 23 March 2022 - A ballistic examination of metal fragments of a military drone that crashed in Zagreb two weeks ago has found that it was an aerial bomb with a fuse, but no final conclusion could be made as regards traces of explosive, the Zagreb County Prosecutor's Office said on Wednesday.

Nova TV reported on Tuesday evening, citing sources close to the investigation, that no traces of explosive had been found on the parts of the unmanned aerial vehicle that had been examined.

The Prosecutor's Office said it had received the results of the ballistic examination and only partial results of the chemical and physical examination, adding that the results of the examinations conducted so far were not sufficient for a final conclusion.

The Prosecutor's Office said it was continuing the investigation in coordination with the Ivan Vučetić Forensic Science Centre, the Criminal Investigation Department, the Military Police and intelligence agencies.

The Soviet-era military drone crashed near a student dorm in the Jarun district of southwest Zagreb shortly after 11 pm on 10 March, damaging about 40 cars in a nearby car park, but injuring no one. It came from Ukraine, having flown over NATO members Romania and Hungary before crashing in the Croatian capital after running out of fuel.

Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said last week the government had reliable and verified information that the unmanned aerial vehicle was armed with a bomb that had mostly likely exploded underground.

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ZAGREB, 23 March 2022 - Independent MP Hrvoje Zekanović said on Wednesday an agreement on the reform of the election law in Bosnia and Herzegovina should be reached "at any cost," warning that the current status quo was detrimental to the Croats in that country.

"I call on Croatian diplomats to get involved as actively as possible in those processes... otherwise the status quo will persist. It suits Serbs to some extent, it definitely suits Bosniaks but it does not suit Croats," he said.

"Croats have been caught in the crossfire of Serb separatism and Bosniak unitarism," he said, pointing the finger at Bosniak leader Bakir Izetbegović as the person responsible for the failure of talks on the election reform.

Social Democrat MP: New minister's statements worrying

Davor Bernardić of the Social Democrats warned about "worrying" statements by the new Construction Minister Ivan Paladina that the post-earthquake reconstruction could last six years, that consolidation of public procurement was being considered and that he would insist on a new invitation for applications for the post of director of the Fund for Reconstruction of Zagreb, even though applications have already been invited and candidates who meet the terms have applied.

"The question is why the minister will insist on inviting applications anew", Bernardić said, adding, "Probably because he wants to choose a crony with whom to arrange public procurement."

Bridge MP Miro Bulj commented on unofficial information that there were no traces of explosives on the fragments of a military drone that crashed in Zagreb on 10 March, criticising the government for its conduct in that situation.

"... this is not a situation where you go masquerading as a soldier, this is a time when national security and economy are threatened," he said alluding to Defence Minister Mario Banožić.

Speaking about inflation, Social Democratic Party (SDP) MP Siniša Hajdaš Dončić said that small and medium businesses were receiving information that the price of electricity would be 300-400% higher as of 1 May, with the official inflation rate, measured by the consumer prices index, standing at 6.3% in February, while the perceived inflation was 24%.

Emil Daus of the Istrian Democratic Party and Marijana Puljak of Centre/GLAS called for greater assistance to Ukrainian refugees, who have been arriving in increasing numbers.

Daus warned that there were not enough interpreters and called for activating all available personnel resources, as well as exempting associations that deliver humanitarian aid from paying road tolls, while Puljak called on the Finance Ministry to not collect income tax from persons who provide accommodation to the refugees free of charge.

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ZAGREB, 18 March (2022) - PM Andrej Plenković said on Friday after talks with opposition MPs on the situation in Ukraine and last week's crash of an unmanned aerial vehicle in Zagreb that they seemed to be satisfied with the information presented at the meeting, and that he suggested holding such meetings on an as-needed basis.

A special item on the agenda of the meeting, held in the government offices, was information on last week's crash of an unmanned aerial vehicle near a student dorm in Zagreb.

"We believe our colleagues from the Opposition have obtained valuable new information that will help them take a position when making comments, in political debates and when assessing the seriousness of the situation," Plenković told reporters after the talks.

He said that opposition politicians were mostly satisfied and that the information they obtained today would be useful to them when making public statements.

"(We need) the greatest possible amount of responsible behaviour, responsible statements, politics that is on the right side of both law and history... in the circumstances that have been anything but normal since 24 February," he said.

The PM said the opposition MPs were provided with reliable and verified information that the drone was armed, that an explosion occurred and that the device in question was most probably an aerial bomb that exploded on impact.

A fuse and bomb fragments have been found and it has been established beyond doubt that the drone, normally intended for reconnaissance, was adapted to carry a weapon, he said.

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ZAGREB, 17 March 2022 - "Ukraine is investigating the incident with the unmanned aerial vehicle that crashed in Zagreb last week and it certainly did not launch it towards Croatia", Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov said on Thursday.

"I am in daily contact with my Croatian colleague, we are talking about that. We are investigating the incident and I assure you we are not the ones who launched that drone towards Croatia. Croatia is our friend and we would never do that", Reznkov said.

He was taking part via video link in a meeting of the European Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, the Security and Defence Subcommittee, and the EU-Ukraine parliamentary delegation.

Responding to a question from Croatian MEP Tonino Picula, Reznikov recalled that Ukraine had been among the first countries to recognise Croatia and to send it weapons during the 1991-95 war.

He said the drone incident raised the question of NATO's security system.

"The drone flew over several member states. How come you didn't see it? Why didn't you destroy it? Can you cover your own airspace?", Reznikov said, describing his question as rhetorical.

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ZAGREB, 13 March 2022 - Remnants of an aerial bomb have been found in the Soviet-era drone that crashed down in southwest Zagreb late on Thursday, Defence Minister Mario Banožić said on Sunday.

"Traces of an explosive device have been found, indicating that this was not a reconnaissance drone. We have found parts of an aerial bomb," Banožić told reporters at the crash site after the bulk of the drone had been dug out of the ground.

He said that it was a Soviet-made unmanned aerial vehicle, but that it was still unclear whether it had come from the Russian or Ukrainian side.

"We will be able to say what its purpose was only after an analysis. This type of bomb was used by aircraft," he added.

Banožić said that the area around the crater was now safe and there were no explosive substances there.

The Seismology Service said on Saturday that its seismographs had registered the impact of the flying object in the Jarun area of southwest Zagreb at 23:01:49 on Thursday.

The drone fell about 50 metres from a student dorm but no one was hurt. About 40 cars parked in a nearby car park were damaged.

For more on this breaking story and politics in Croatia, visit TCN's dedicated page.

ZAGREB, 11 March (2022) - NATO's integrated air and missile defence tracked the flight path of an object which subsequently crashed in Zagreb, an official of NATO told Hina on Friday.

"NATO's integrated air and missile defence tracked the flight path of an object which subsequently crashed in Zagreb. The Croatian authorities have announced that they are investigating this incident," a NATO spokesman, Daniele Riggio, said in his brief answer to HINA's query.

According to some speculations, a Tu-141 "Strizh" reconnaissance drone is believed to have arrived in Croatia from Ukraine, flying across Romania's and Hungary's airspace.

Croatian Defence Minister Mario Banožić said earlier today that the drone had been detected by Croatian radars and that it had been under surveillance as soon as it entered Croatia's airspace.

It crashed seven minutes after entering Croatia's air space, and the fall happened shortly after 2300 hours.

President Zoran Milanović said that radars in Croatia had detected the object which was in the Croatian airspace for a brief period. He also added that no alert information had been provided to Croatia.

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ZAGREB, 11 March 2022 - Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said on Friday the most important thing was to establish who launched the drone which crashed in Zagreb last night and if it reached Croatia by accident or deliberately.

He informed the leaders of other EU member states at a summit in Versailles about the incident and said Croatia had experts for such situations.

"We will share with others the things they find out," he said at the end of the summit.

"They received this information with maximum seriousness. It's not usual for an aircraft that is 14 metres long and weighs six tonnes to fall on a capital city."

Asked if NATO tracked the drone and if Croatia was informed about it, Plenković said, "If someone had been notified, the reaction would have been different. Our planes would have taken off and reacted."

This was a totally unforeseen situation, he added.

A NATO spokesman told Hina the alliance's air defence tracked the drone's flight path.

The Russian-made drone arrived in Croatia from Hungary, and in Hungary from Romania. It was in Croatia's airspace for six or seven minutes before crashing in a residential area in Zagreb.

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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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