After the war ended in 1995, Croatia decided to privatize their industry. The most extensitve and profitable of all was their food processing industry, combined with agricultural potential. Most of it landed in the lap of Todorović and his Agrokor corporation, which controlled the entire production and distribution chain - farms, processing plants, packaging plants and retailers.
However Croatia then joined the EU and the cracks appeared in his business model. Specifically, his firms specialized in what we might call “high price, low quality” segment, which understandably suffered when real competition finally arrived. He still kept up his business model and tried to expand his holdings, but ended up unable to find sources of finance to do so. He eventually ended up with loan sharks with Russian passports.
Then the obvious things happened and most of Croatian industry ended up with Sberbank, ultimately owned by the Russian state. Is it any wonder their president is Putin’s lapdog?
I understand Warsaw is raking it in on this war.
And now has considerable power over Ukraine elections.