Did the Croatian President Zoran Milanović state that the Republic of Croatia plans on occupying Russia? No, that's not true: In 2022, Zoran Milanović made a satirical comment about the Croatian Electricity Company (HEP) and gas prices, saying that it's time to overrun Moscow in order to settle the matter with gas prices. His comment was a joke, not an official statement.
The claim originated from a video (archived here) on TikTok on January 21, 2024. It began (translated from Croatian to English by Lead Stories staff):
Croatia plans on occupying Russia 😱
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Tue Jan 30 09:30:26 2024 UTC)
The video shows an interview (archived here) with the president from February 1, 2022, where he talks about HEP, the Croatian Electricity Company in Croatia, and the increasing prices of gas. Hrvatska elektroprivreda (HEP group) (archived here) is a national energy company that has produced, distributed and supplied electricity for more than a century. In the last few decades it has also been distributing and supplying thermal energy and natural gas to customers. Milanović was asked (as translated):
How can you comment on the increase in gas prices, we see a situation in the city of Zagreb where the minister and the current government are accused of increasing gas prices?
He answered (as translated) :
They use a public company for a private kinship system of domination. Why doesn't HEP get involved in the story and why doesn't the HEP gas industry take the burden on themselves, reduce their own profits, reduce the salaries of these swindlers so that citizens would pay lower bills? That is possible. Did we sell HEP? We didn't. Great. You didn't sell it so that you could continue to employ your friends. OK. But, well, in every evil there is some good. So you have HEP gas, please, let them carry the burden and support the Croatian people. We will see what will happen to the price of gas by the end of the year. I think it's time to overrun Moscow, to settle the matter. Vladivostok would be called Hrvojegrad, and then we've settled everything and the matter is over.
Milanović's comment about Vladivostok and Hrvojegrad was satirical. Hrvoje is a common Croatian name, and grad means city in Croatian, so it was word play.
Lead Stories conducted a Google search on January 30, 2024, with the Croatian terms "Hrvatska planira okupirati Rusiju" (archived here), in English "Croatia plans on occupying Russia." The search produced no results to corroborate the claim.
