Bosnia's institutions must apologise to Russia and its writer Zakhar Prilepin as soon as possible, Bosnian Serb leader, Milorad Dodik, said on Thursday following a meeting with Russian Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Petr Ivantsov.

Last month Prilepin was banned the entry to Bosnia, where he was due to attend a literary event, due to his associating with separatists in Ukraine. Bosnia's Security Minister then said Prilepin ran an “ultra right-wing party in Russia, which was banned by Russian authorities.” The minister clarified it was not a minister but intelligence services of Bosnia and Herzegovina that made the decision on the ban entry.

According to Dodik, who is the President of Bosnia's Serb-dominated entity, Republika Srpska (RS), Bosnia's institutions should apologise to this entity's institutions too for banning the entry for the Russian writer.

“If not, our relations will be narrowed down to the level where additional answers to that will always be demanded,” underlined Dodik.

The ban entry in the late August triggered a series of reactions among Bosnian Serbs including the one of the RS President, who had said he saw this as “a part of the involvement of security institutions in Bosnia in the anti-Russian hysteria that is being run by some western countries.”

Following the meeting with Russian Ambassador, Dodik said Bosnia's Council of Ministers still have not provided answers about this case and that this was “apparent misuse of the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina.”

“…and this must happen never again,” Dodik underlined.

Controversial writer and journalist Yevgeny Nikolayevich Prilepin, writing as Zakhar Prilepin, is a former member of Russian special riot forces called OMON, which were deployed in Chechnya from 1996 until 1999.

He later became a journalist and in February 2017 joined a volunteer unit that fought in the Russian occupied part of Ukraine.

On his social media profiles, he advocates the independence of the Ukrainian region of Donbass and the cover of one of his books shows him in a paramilitary uniform. Prilepin is not listed on available lists of persons banned from entering the European Union.