Bosnian Serb nationalist firebrand Milorad Dodik says he respects Vladimir Putin and backs so-called “referendums” in occupied Ukraine on becoming a member of Russia.
Dodik, who recently serves because the Bosnian Serb member of the three-way presidency, used to be talking forward of the overall election in Bosnia on Sunday.
A vocal supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Dodik advised the “referendums” in Ukraine — which the West have slammed as being compelled, unlawful and rigged — might be utilized in Bosnia.
Dodik overtly advocates tearing away Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity, the Republika Srpska (RS), and becoming a member of it with neighbouring Serbia.
The department of the rustic into two primary administrative devices or entities — the RS and the Bosniak-Croat majority Federation of BiH or FBiH — is the results of the United States and West-mediated Dayton Peace Accords, the peace deal that ended Bosnia’s 1992-1995 struggle, which noticed an estimated 100,000 folks killed.
“As for our political family members in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Russian place is widely recognized. It is completely associated with supporting the textual content of the Dayton Agreement,” Dodik informed Euronews Serbia.
“The West has tried to dismantle the Dayton Agreement to the point that it remains on the sidelines.”
“On the other hand, Russia remained committed to the agreement. And that is why Russia is an undoubted ally that I respect, and I respect President (Vladimir) Putin.”
The 1995 peace agreement, a part of which serves as the country’s constitution, created a complicated maze of jurisdictions that enable the country’s three main ethnic groups to dominate domestic politics and exert control over key decision-making processes.
Dodik believes that over the past three decades, significant power has been transferred from the entities to the state-level government — something that he vowed to undo in 2021, threatening to pull the RS out of key state institutions such as the tax authority and the country’s small professional army.
This created the biggest political crisis the country has found itself in since the end of the war in 1995, with Dodik’s actions labelled as an attempt at secession.
He has been the subject of several US sanctions packages and was recently put on a UK sanctions list for his disruptive domestic actions.
“It suits me to legalise the referendum as a way of deciding the status of the Republika Srpska, and I have been saying this for years,” stated Dodik, who’s operating to turn out to be the entity president of the RS.
“But that does not change our relations with Serbia. We have excellent relations on all other matters,” regarding Belgrade pointing out it’s going to no longer recognise the so-called ‘sham’ referendums.
Bosnia will head to the polls on Sunday for the rustic’s presidential and parliamentary election, a vote that would cause its worst political disaster since its civil struggle 3 many years in the past.
