AP: Putin backs Dodik and Minić ahead of Sunday’s elections in Bosnia

Russian President Vladimir Putin gave support to Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik and the entity’s prime minister, Savo Minić, for the general elections held on Sunday in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as the American news agency AP writes. According to AP reporting, after their meeting in Moscow, RTRS television, controlled by the Bosnian Serb authorities, announced that the two officials received the Russian president’s support for Sunday’s vote.

As AP writes, around 3.4 million voters in Bosnia will choose the members of the multi-ethnic Presidency, deputies of the central parliament and representatives of the institutions of both entities. Dodik, the agency notes, has long been Russia’s main ally in the Balkans and has travelled to Moscow before previous elections as well; during the Joe Biden administration he faced U.S. sanctions.

According to AP, although he is barred from exercising public office, Dodik remains the leader of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, the ruling party in Republika Srpska, and “dominates the election campaign in the Serb-controlled part of Bosnia.” His calls for the secession of the Serb entity from Bosnia, the agency adds, have raised fears in the West of new instability in the Balkans, particularly while the war in Ukraine continues.

AP also links pre-election tensions to the honour that Bosnian Serbs and the public in Serbia paid at the end of August to wartime commander Ratko Mladić, sentenced to life imprisonment for genocide; as the agency notes, the participation of senior officials in his burial in Belgrade drew sharp criticism from the European Union.