Are there paramilitary Russian training camps in the RS – is a question that has opened up numerous controversies in our country. This thesis was presented by the Minister of Defense Zukan Helez, claiming that they are located, under surveillance and that they conduct exercises occasionally. It didn’t take long for the first reactions from the RS. Denials and counter-accusations. Nevertheless, regardless of the reactions, such warnings from the state minister of defense must certainly be taken seriously and investigated.
“It’s not a secret, people see it, the villages around Rogatica, people take pictures of it, in the middle of the day that there is an exercise there. I have pictures, I will show them on television… It’s not every day, they appear and then disappear. They practice with weapons, and we know where they got them from. It is put under some form to be legal, as part of the MUP of the RS, then it appears in another form, and as long as it is not dangerous for the state, there is no reaction. We have located it and are tracking it. I told that to people from the international community and of course they know,” said Helez.
The exercises are semi-legal, the number of participants varies, but they are located and monitored, Helez said, among other things. It did not take long for the first and very harsh reactions from the RS. These are dangerous lies, state political representatives from the RS, and add that earlier Helez’s allegations about the escape of Milorad Dodik from Bosnia and Herzegovina were also denied by the OSA.
“Whenever Zukan Helez has a crisis, he invents that he has some intelligence on Dodik that links Dodik to the Russians and which turns out to be a complete fabrication. These are notorious and heinous lies,” said Radovan Kovačević, a delegate in the House of Peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina (SNSD).
“Chairman Kristo’s mandate is to urgently convene a meeting of the Reporting and Intelligence Authority today, which will invite the management of the OSA to verify these allegations and say whether Helez is presenting information from the OSA, does it have such information or is it a dream of Minister Helez and taken over the narrative of those who want to complicate the political situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina”, stated Staša Košarac, Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Condemnation of Helez’s claims also comes from the National Assembly of Republika Srpska. The representatives of the entity government from the opposition agree that Minister Helez is telling the truth.
“I think that what Helez said has nothing to do with the truth, but I also think that the committee should discuss it and take positions,” said Vukota Govedarica, president of the Committee for Security in the NSRS.
A few days ago, representatives of the RS in the Parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina sent a letter to the US Senate and Congress in which they stated that Bosnia and Herzegovina is a haven for radical Islamists, and that there are villages in the Federation of BiH where Sharia law is implemented.
