“On the other hand, politicians from the East were watching us and knew exactly what we were doing. We were not doing anything. And they were working and preparing for this. At this moment, the data coming from the battlefield, from Russia, and the data coming from Europe are devastating for Europe. We cannot catch up with their weapons production at all. We cannot do anything to them economically. No sanctions have any effect on them. Russia's GDP is even growing, and Europe depends on the policies of the United States of America,” Anušić said and concluded: “As Europe, we have put ourselves in a situation where we are perhaps the weakest link in the division of power, in the division of forces, in the division of influence.” The Minister of Defense was particularly critical of the distribution of European money. “Despite warnings, the European Union has spent billions and billions on electric vehicles, on autonomous cars, on driverless taxis. All you have to do is make a small study and get money from the European Union Fund. I was the mayor of a municipality and the county prefect for a long time and you got the best money for the protection of dandelions in the meadow, the protection of bees, certain insects, fish in the river that no one threatens in any way, but huge amounts of money were given for these very things. Never a single kuna for security, for preparing for this situation we have now, for arranging nuclear shelters, for educating people... For everything but weapons. We don't want to talk about weapons because for us in European pink politics, it is very stressful to talk about weapons.”

He recalled that this past year in his role as Minister of Defense, he worked on equipping and strengthening the armed forces by purchasing weapons systems for the Croatian Army.

In this context, he referred to, as he said, “the immaturity of our policy in Parliament which criticizes these purchases and claims that 10 or 20 kindergartens could have been built for that money….Yes, we could have. Let's completely sell everything and we can build thousands of kindergartens, however, they will stand empty.  And who will defend those kindergartens, those families when problems arise? The immaturity of our politics is incredible,” Anušić emphasized, concluding that Croatia’s ruling policy is changing.  “We are aware of the dangers we face. Not to threaten or attack anyone, but to prevent what happened to us in 1991. That is the key to everything,” said the Minister of Defense. He then turned to an analysis of Serbia’s military budget, which, according to him, will reach around 2.5 billion euros next year. “What is Serbia arming itself for? They are practically half-starved there. People work for very low wages, there is little employment, but they produce and buy an abnormally large amount of weapons. Why? No one arms themselves for no reason. For this reason, European politics must change. Urgently,” emphasized the Minister of Defense. In his opinion, the whole of Europe and the world are once again facing great tests. “Very serious times require very serious, strong and determined people. We have wasted the good times that lasted quite a long time. The times to come will require much more serious leaders of Europe and the world because we will have a conflict the world has perhaps never had. I hope it will not escalate to that stage, but we must be prepared and responsible primarily to our people who expect us to protect them”.

‘President Milanović Actively Participates in Disabling our Army‘

Analyzing the security situation and Croatia’s position within NATO, the Minister of Defense could not ignore the moves of President Zoran Milanović. “The President of the state is actively participating in disabling members of our armed forces by refusing to participate with our NATO allies throughout Europe and the world in peacekeeping activities. What is the message of Croatian policy towards our allies in the European Union and NATO? We are showing lack of credibility, lack of principles and ingratitude for what certain NATO members, primarily the USA, did for us during the Homeland War,” Anušić pointed out.

“It is not clear to me how we got into a situation where some Croatian politicians don’t have the courage to stand up for Croatia. Why are we simply standing by as Orbán and Vucic aspire to take our territory. This is very dangerious primarily for Croatia.”