Putin meets Bosnian Serb leaders days before Bosnia election

Bosnian Serb pro-Russian ruling politicians met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Tuesday, days before Bosnia goes to the polls in a general election. Separatist leader Milorad Dodik and Prime Minister Savo Minic were reported by Bosnian Serb broadcaster RTRS to have received Putin's support for Sunday's vote.

The meeting comes at a sensitive time for Bosnia, where around 3.4 million voters will elect a multi-ethnic presidency, the central Parliament and institutions in the country's two entities. The power-sharing system was created under the peace agreement that ended Bosnia's 1992-95 war, but the country remains ethnically tense and economically weak, while its bid for European Union membership has moved slowly.

Dodik, a former Bosnian Serb president, is strongly pro-Russian and has travelled to Moscow before past elections as well. Although he has been banned from holding public office in Bosnia, he remains the leader of the ruling Alliance of Independent Social Democrats and has dominated the campaign in the Serb-held part of the country.

Seen as one of Russia's main allies in the Balkans, Dodik has repeatedly clashed with Western officials overseeing peace in Bosnia. He was also sanctioned by the United States during the Biden administration. His repeated calls for the Serb entity to separate from Bosnia have raised fears in Western countries of fresh instability in the Balkans as the war in Ukraine continues.

Tensions linked to the war era have also resurfaced before the election after public homage was paid among Bosnian Serbs and in Serbia to wartime Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic, who died in late August while serving a life sentence for genocide and other war crimes. Bosnian Serbs regard Mladic as a hero despite his conviction by a UN court over the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys, along with other atrocities. Senior Bosnian Serb officials attended his funeral service in Belgrade, drawing strong criticism from the EU.

Bosnia's other entity, the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, is made up of Bosniaks, who are mainly Muslim, and Croats, and is linked with the Serb entity through joint central institutions. The 1992 war began after Bosnia declared independence from the Serb-led former Yugoslavia and ethnic Serbs took up arms to carve out their own state and join Serbia. More than 100,000 people were killed and millions displaced, leaving a legacy that continues to shape the country's politics ahead of this election.

With PTI Inputs

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