Putin Backs Bosnian Serbs Against ‘Liberal’ West, Dodik Says
(Bloomberg) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin has pledged support to Bosnian Serbs in disputes with other factions in the war-scarred Bosnia-Herzegovina over power sharing pushed by western allies, a local leader said.
“Russia has a series of objections about disregard for the Dayton peace agreement,” which ended Bosnia's conflict in 1995, said Milorad Dodik, the top Serb representative in an interview to RTRS broadcaster on Friday.
Putin prefers preserving the original provisions of the deal negotiated in Dayton, Ohio, “as opposed to liberal concepts from the West” to overhaul the arrangements, the Bosnian Serb leader said.
Dodik has repeatedly threatened that his Serb-run part of Bosnia, one of the two autonomous entities created under the peace pact, will secede if foreign envoys who oversee the semi-divided state keep centralizing powers. The other half of Bosnia is run by Bosnia's Muslims and Croats. Bboth parts delegate officials to a central administration in Sarajevo.
Accused of destabilizing Bosnia, Dodik has repeatedly turned to Russia for support, including financial. Putin reiterated his backing for “joint economic projects” in the Serb entity, Republika Srpska, including a new gas pipeline, further deliveries of the fuel and a planned solar plant, according to Dodik.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed the leaders met in the Kremlin Thursday but declined to provide details of the encounter, which Moscow hadn't announced publicly, unlike most official visits.
Dodik also met with Gazprom PJSC Chief Executive Officer Alexey Miller in St. Petersburg to discuss “cooperation, in particular Russian gas supplies,” gas producer said in a statement on Friday.
As of this year, the Russian gas giant has been exporting gas to Bosnia via the TurkStream pipeline. In January-November, gas deliveries to the Balkan country exceeded 2020 full-year volume, when Gazprom supplied 0.214 billion cubic meters, according to company's report.
©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
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