Plenkovic Slams Serbia Over Mladic at UN, Vucevic Responds
Croatia's prime minister told the UN that state honors for Ratko Mladic insulted his victims, and Serbian presidential adviser Milos Vucevic shot back that Zagreb rehabilitates Ustasha symbols.
Andrej Plenkovic told the UN General Assembly in New York that the military and state honors given to Ratko Mladic at his funeral in Belgrade were an insult to his victims and to the rulings of international courts. Serbian presidential adviser Milos Vucevic answered him the same day, calling it hypocritical for Zagreb to lecture Belgrade while rehabilitating Ustasha symbols. The exchange on the world’s biggest diplomatic stage came as Serbia formally remains on the path toward European Union membership, a club Croatia already belongs to, so any message like this one from New York shapes how Brussels reads Belgrade’s readiness for that path.
Multilateralism, Ukraine and migration: the wider message from New York
The Croatian prime minister spoke during the regular address of heads of state and government to the UN General Assembly, where he opened by calling for renewed trust in multilateralism, which he said delivers results, pointing to Croatia’s own experience of the 1990s war that claimed nearly 20,000 lives. In the same speech he addressed Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, reform of the Security Council, the use of artificial intelligence, illegal migration and EU enlargement into southeastern Europe, before turning to the topic that concerns Serbia directly.
Why the Croatian prime minister brought up Mladic
Speaking about EU enlargement, Plenkovic argued that Europe’s transformation requires honesty about the past, and that reconciliation is only possible once responsibility for crimes is acknowledged and their glorification rejected. He tied that claim directly to Mladic’s recent funeral in Belgrade, held with state honors.
Military and state honors given to Mladic in Serbia were an insult to his victims and to the rulings of international courts.
Plenkovic said, adding that Mladic is a convicted war criminal.
Ratko Mladic is a convicted war criminal responsible for the genocide in Srebrenica, the first genocide in Europe since the Holocaust.
the Croatian prime minister said, calling it the culmination of Mladic’s earlier actions in Croatia as well, where, he said, cities were shelled, civilians killed and dams mined.
In the same address Plenkovic also raised the position of Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina, who he said are still denied legitimate representation, including in the country’s Presidency, which he called contrary to the spirit of the Dayton Agreement. He delivered that message about ten days before Bosnia and Herzegovina’s citizens go to the polls, at a moment when electoral reform and the representation of constituent peoples are once again at the center of regional attention.
Vucevic: Zagreb is rehabilitating Ustasha symbols
Belgrade’s response came quickly. Vucevic posted on X at 1:40 PM the same day, saying Plenkovic’s UN appearance showed that official Zagreb still has no vision of its own for the future.
Another appearance by Andrej Plenkovic before the UN General Assembly showed that official Zagreb still cannot offer any vision for the future, and instead, for who knows which time, reduces its foreign policy to anti-Serbian rhetoric.
Vucevic wrote, adding that Serbia is investing in regional cooperation, economic progress and peace in the Balkans, while Zagreb, in his words, remains trapped in its own obsession with Belgrade. The presidential adviser said that instead of attending concerts by Marko Perkovic Thompson, Plenkovic could deal with the problems piling up in his own backyard and confront his own country’s history.
Serbia will continue to pursue a responsible and independent policy and will not allow anyone to blackmail it, nor will it take lessons from those who have subordinated regional stability to their own political complexes.
Vucevic said, closing his post.
Bosnia and Herzegovina, where Plenkovic is calling for greater Croat representation in the Presidency, holds elections in just over a week, and the Croatian prime minister used the same UN address to weigh in on the choice of the next secretary general, since Antonio Guterres’s second term ends this year. The exchange of accusations between Zagreb and Belgrade is thus unfolding in the same week as both the regional vote and the leadership of the world body where both messages were delivered are being decided.
