Balkan Leaders to Voice Support for Embattled Ukraine at Croatia Summit
Source: Balkan Insight
Volodymyr Zelensky is greeted on arrival in Croatia. Photo: @ZelenskyyUa/X.
South-east European political leaders including three presidents, five prime ministers and four foreign ministers are expected to attend the Ukraine South-East Europe summit in Dubrovnik on Wednesday in the Croatian coastal city of Dubrovnik alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“With [Croatian] Prime Minister [Andrej] Plenkovic, we will discuss further defence cooperation, rehabilitation of our warriors wounded on the frontline, as well as Ukraine’s recovery,” Zelensky wrote on X after he arrived.
“At the summit in the Ukraine… we will discuss international efforts to bring peace closer and implement the Peace Formula, our joint response with partners to security challenges, as well as cooperation on the path to the European Union and NATO,” he added.
The summit will show that the “whole region supports Ukraine and the Ukrainian people in the fight for freedom”, Croatian premier Plenkovic said before the event, AFP news agency reported. Plenkovic also pledged that Croatia will continue to help Ukraine militarily.
Croatian President Zoran Milanovic, whose has voiced scepticism about support for Ukraine, was not invited to the event in Dubrovnik.
Milanovic and Prime Minister Plenkovic have clashed before over foreign policy and relations with Ukraine and NATO.
Dubrovnik was under tight security as the event was due to begin, with significantly more police and special units officers than tourists in the streets around the Hotel Excelsior, where the summit is being held. All the access roads in the city centre leading to the venue were cleared of cars, causing traffic problems in the congested city.
The other heads of state expected to attend President Natasa Pirc Musar of Slovenia, President Jakov Milatovic of Montenegro and President Vjosa Osmani of Kosovo.
Also confirmed are five prime ministers: Kyriakos Mitsotakis of Greece, Nikolai Denkov of Bulgaria, Edi Rama of Albania, Dimitar Kovacevski of North Macedonia, and the chair of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Borjana Kristo.
Turkey, Serbia, Romania and Moldova will be represented at the level of foreign ministers.
The participants of the summit are to endorse the Dubrovnik Declaration, the text of which is still being negotiated, but it is expected to be similar to earlier declarations from previous Ukraine support summits in Athens (August 2022) and Tirana (February 2024).
The main points are likely to include condemnation of Russian aggression, support for the territorial integrity of Ukraine, including the Crimean peninsula, support for President Zelensky’s peace plan, a call to prosecute war crimes, support for Kyiv’s European integration and NATO membership, and support for the energy security and reconstruction of Ukraine after the end of the war.
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