Retired Brigadier Stjepan Domjanić, deputy commander of the attack direction of the 2nd Guards Brigade 'Gromovi', in an exclusive interview for Zagreb.info reveals unknown details from the beginning of the operation that changed the course of the Homeland War.
The military-police operation Storm, whose anniversary is being marked today, August 5, 2026, remains etched in national memory as a key turning point in the Homeland War. This operation liberated a large part of occupied Croatian territory, and its conclusion paved the way for peaceful reintegration and the final establishment of the territorial integrity of the Republic of Croatia.
About the dramatic moments of the first day, the weight of the fighting, and the loss of comrades, retired Brigadier Stjepan Domjanić spoke to Zagreb.info. At the time, he was the deputy commander of the attack direction of the 2nd Guards Brigade 'Gromovi'.
Domjanić recalls how it all began in the early morning hours. "We set off around two in the morning with our units across the Letovanac Bridge. I was there, monitoring every unit, because by 5 a.m. they needed to be in position and ready for combat action, for the attack," he said for Zagreb.info. Heavy weapons, such as tanks and howitzers, had already been in position for days.
The brigadier describes the intensity of the first clashes: "It started at 5, and we had about three or four hours of fighting-there was real fighting, because the Serbian Territorial Defense was not retreating. They decided to defend fiercely, so it was quite difficult." The withdrawal of Serbian forces began only around 9:30 a.m. His brigade operated on two axes: the main one across Šestan Hill toward Gornja Bačuga, and a secondary one toward Mošćenica, where there were many casualties. The goal was to bring Petrinja into a semi-encirclement and force the enemy to surrender.
In an operation involving nearly 200,000 members of Croatian military and police forces, attacking from some thirty directions, losses were inevitable. Domjanić emphasizes that the hardest moment was not the fighting itself, but the evening analysis of the first day.
"The hardest moment I experienced in the brigade was at the end of the day, in the evening when we commanders gathered and analyzed what we had done, who had been killed, how many were wounded, and when they started listing the names-it wasn't easy; that stays with you forever," he recalls. It was then that he learned of the deaths of infantry battalion commander Predrag Matanović and company commander Ivo Hrga, who were killed on his axis.
In the days before the operation, there was uncertainty. Domjanić reveals that they were on standby for seven days, wondering "whether the high political leadership would agree that the Croatian Army should not go on the attack." Despite this, morale was at its peak. "Everyone wanted to get it done; no one was afraid-this was a professional unit. Each of us knew we could be killed, each of us," he stresses.
Although he hoped for quick success, he admits that at one point he had doubts. "But I wondered if we had started something we couldn't finish, because we were on such an axis that we had no information." The news of the fall of Knin, which was relayed to him by the brigade commander, now General Zvonko Peternel, was a moment of pure relief. "'Štef, Knin has fallen.' Then you could cry from joy," Domjanić recalls.
On the second day of the operation, about 80 percent of the planned objectives had been achieved, and numerous towns were liberated, including Petrinja, Glina, Kostajnica, Slunj, Gračac, Drniš, and Obrovac. In the entire operation, 196 members of the Croatian Army were killed, and more than 1,100 were wounded.
The anniversary still evokes strong emotions. "Every year is emotional, as if it happened yesterday. Emotions surface; you remember everything-that you could have been killed, because some guys died on the last day," says Domjanić. Reflecting on the empty spaces between Zagreb and Dalmatia, he concludes: "People once lived there, but those people were manipulated in the '90s, used, and ultimately betrayed. Storm was, we can conclude after thirty years, a consequence because Croatia had to defend itself."
