SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina (AP) — Hundreds of Bosnian Serbs waved Serbian and Russian flags and banners of Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday as they staged a protest in support of their separatist leader seeking union with neighboring Serbia.
The protests took place at Bosnia’s ill-defined internal border that separates the country into two entities – the Republika Srpska and the Bosnian-Croat Federation – as stipulated in the US-brokered peace agreement that ended the country’s 1992-1995 war.
Serb demonstrators chanted slogans against the fact that Bosnia is one country. They briefly disrupted traffic between the two entities, but no major incidents were reported.
“We have always been on the side of the winners,” said Ljubica Kosic, a Bosnian Serb official. “We have always been on the side of freedom. So our connection with the Russian Federation and the Russian people is wonderful.”
Bosnian Serb President Milorad Dodik, who has close ties to Putin, openly seeks to separate Bosnian Serb lands from the rest of Bosnia and annex them to neighboring Serbia. For this reason, the United States imposed sanctions on him in 2017.
There are widespread fears that Serbia, an ally of Russia, may inflame tensions in the Balkans to divert at least some of the world’s attention from the war in Ukraine.
Bosnian prosecutors are now bringing charges against Dodik for his separatist actions and for defying the decisions of an international official overseeing peace in the country.
He could face up to five years in prison if a Bosnian court sentences him on these charges.
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