”Russia has several levers in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), and Milorad Dodik, a member of the Presidency of BiH and the SNSD president, is one of their most valuable, as evidenced by the amount of time he gets to meet with Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, ” it was stated yesterday from the regular session of the Association of Independent Intellectuals ”Krug 99” (”Cirle 99”).
At the very beginning, Bassuener mentioned that it is in the common interest of political elites in BiH and the European Union (EU) to reach an agreement on the election law and limited constitutional reform, due to constant failures to this day.
”For the dominant political leaders in BiH, especially for HDZ BiH leader Dragan Covic, this despair is obvious, as he sees this opportunity to further hermetically close this version of feudalism led by ethnic parties. His long-standing threat to prevent the elections has the support of Zagreb, and the HDZ is advocating this agenda with the European People’s Party (EPP) and the European Parliament. However, so far without success,”said Bassuener.
He then referred to Russia’s attack on Ukraine, noting that the event resulted in strong Western unity.
”Since then, there has been an unprecedented demonstration of Western unity. Ukraine’s persistent and determined resistance is largely responsible for this phenomenon. However, despite this movement, because the West is more united now than I know for myself, it still needs to be manifested to a significant extent in the Western Balkans as well. If united, the West has the most trump cards and the greatest possible tools in this region to influence the dynamics and deter negative developments and enable progress. Nevertheless, the West continues to allow the most retrograde political actors to set the agenda, and not just in BiH,” he added.
He also stressed that Russia’s ability to influence the dynamics of events in BiH is currently limited due to their current situation and war events.
”However, their desire to influence the West from other fronts is still equally great. In that sense, Milorad Dodik is very valuable for Moscow, and that is why we can expect that there will be certain declarations, and certainly, Russia can influence the events here until we close that space,” Bassuener stated, adding:
”If that space is closed, then we can certainly expect Russia to veto the extension of EUFOR’s mandate in BiH in November this year. There is no reason not to expect Russia, and perhaps China, to veto in this regard, so it is logical to try to strengthen the forces that deter such developments and to maintain territorial integrity and perceptions of citizens’ personal security because it is certain that Moscow will try to do something in that direction through Dodik. Russia has several levers here, and Dodik is one of their most valuable, as evidenced by the amount of time Dodik gets for meetings with Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs.”, Federalna writes.
E.Dz.
