Knin Marks Operation Storm: Plenkovic Vows Veteran Pensions
The central ceremony was held at NK Dinara stadium, and the prime minister announced that this fall parliament will take up amendments to two laws tying a pension bonus to length of wartime service.
Knin, a city where close to 10,000 of its roughly 12,000 residents were Serbs before August 1995, held its central ceremony today marking 31 years since the military and police operation known as Storm. The event also produced the most expensive veteran policy pledge Croatia has heard in years: Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said the government will send parliament amendments to two laws this fall that would cover around 200,000 people.
Who the 200,000 veterans pledge actually covers
Plenkovic announced a pension supplement whose amount would depend on how long a person served in the defense of Croatia, an increase in the lowest veteran pensions under the same criterion, and the removal of the last pension cut applied to members of the military and police, the one introduced in 2002. The two earlier cuts were reversed in 2017 and 2022, making this the third move of its kind in nine years.
“With these amendments we will cover around 200,000 Croatian veterans.”
The pledge carries a domestic political backstory that went unmentioned in Knin. The ruling HDZ had earlier rejected a similar proposal from the Mozemo platform, and the same mechanism is now moving forward as a government bill instead. The exact size of the supplement, the calculation formula and the start date will only be known once the text of the amendments is formally presented.
How the day unfolded in Knin
The program opened at 6:30 a.m. with the traditional dawn march, which set out from the barracks of the 4th Guards Brigade Paukovi and passed through King Tomislav Street, Storm Square, Dr. Franjo Tudjman Street and Dr. Ante Starcevic Square before reaching the bridge over the Krka River. Residents began arriving in the city as early as 6 a.m.
- at 7:30 a.m., Mass was held at the Church of Our Lady of the Great Croatian Baptismal Vow, led by military ordinary Jure Bogdan and Sibenik Bishop Tomislav Rogic
- at 9:00 a.m., wreaths were laid at the Croatian Victory Storm 95 Monument on Dr. Ante Starcevic Square by families of the fallen, wartime commanders, veterans’ associations and state officials
- at 9:40 a.m., the central ceremony began at NK Dinara stadium, followed by the raising of the Croatian flag at Knin Fortress to the national anthem
Thirty one gun salutes were fired, the chronicle of the operation was read along with the names of the fallen and missing soldiers, and a minute of silence was observed. The aerial portion of the program featured Rafale fighter jets, Mi-171Sh and OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopters, UH-60M Black Hawks and AgustaWestland AW139 aircraft, four parachutists descended with flags, and the aerobatic team Wings of Storm performed. A tactical and technical display showed off Patria, M-ATV and HMMWV combat vehicles, the BM-21 Grad multiple rocket launcher, the Mistral-3 air defense system and drones.
Organizers estimated the crowd at around 10,000 people. Traditional soldiers’ bean stew was served from 11:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., and a concert on Knin’s main square was scheduled for 9:00 p.m.
Defense, weapons and messages from the stage
Plenkovic tied his remarks on Storm to the war in Ukraine and the conflicts in the Middle East, arguing that EU and NATO membership do not guarantee lasting security of borders.
“Croatia threatens no one, but fears no one either. It has to be capable of responding to every threat to its security.”
The prime minister used the same argument to justify recent arms purchases, from Rafale jets and Black Hawk helicopters to Leopard tanks, Caesar artillery systems and Bayraktar drones.
“The armed forces must be built up in peacetime so that their strength prevents a war from ever starting.”
Croatian President Zoran Milanovic spoke about a practice introduced in 2012 under which a veteran addresses the ceremony on behalf of fellow fighters.
“That practice continues to this day, and it’s a good one, because it’s from the veterans themselves, the people who took part in these operations, that you get the most accurate and most credible account, and with the passage of time, the coolest headed one too, of what actually happened.”
Parliament Speaker Gordan Jandrokovic turned toward foreign policy, saying “We are not a state whose fate is shaped by others, but an actor that takes responsibility,” while Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Ivan Anusic said: “What began in 1991, we finished in 1995. We won the war.”
The numbers in the Defense Ministry’s statement
According to Croatia’s Ministry of Defense, the operation lasted from August 4 to 7, 1995, involved around 200,000 soldiers and police officers, and covered 10,400 square kilometers, or 18.4 percent of Croatian territory. The ministry lists 243 Croatian defenders killed, 1,430 wounded and two missing.
In Knin, Plenkovic also said the search continues for 1,725 missing persons, and that the issue remains one of the key points in relations with Serbia. That was the only part of the ceremony touching on Belgrade, and it stayed tied to case files, archives and grave locations rather than any political assessment of the operation itself.
The question about Kundid
Nova TV journalist Ivan Kastelan asked the prime minister whether he had spoken with Chief of the General Staff Tihomir Kundid, whom he was meeting in the same place for the first time since their public falling out over attending a military parade in Paris.
“We greeted each other.”
State officials left Knin, then, with two open dates on the calendar. One is the fall session of parliament, where it will become clear how much the pension supplement is actually worth per year of wartime service. The other is November 18 in Vukovar, where, as reported here this summer, the commemoration has already become entangled in political dispute, that time over a Thompson concert and calls for a boycott.
