Bosnia Presidency member Sefik Dzaferovic assessed as “shameful” the statement by Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic who thanked Russia’s Vladimir Putin for the veto Russia put on Srebrenica genocide resolution in 2015.

“The Serb people will never forget how Russia acted at Putin’s order and vetoed the UN Security Council’s resolution which was about to declare the Serbs a genocide people. Putin then protected the truth and justice, and that’s why we feel a great responsibility for everything we will do in future,” Vucic told Russia’s President, who paid a one-day visit to the Serbian capital on Thursday.

Dzaferovic, who represents Bosniaks in the State tripartite Presidency, assessed Vucic’s words as shameful.

“It is a shameful statement, it would be a civilised act to condemn genocide, to pay respect to genocide victims, and it is an anti-civilised act to prevent the adoption of a resolution which condemns genocide,” he said.

In 2015, Russia put a veto on a UN Security Council’s resolution condemning the Srebrenica massacre as genocide. The veto took place on the 20th anniversary of the killing of over 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys.

Bosnian Serb forces overran the area around the eastern town of Srebrenica in July 1995, which was an enclave the UN declared a safe zone. Despite the UN’s protection, thousands of Bosniak Muslim men and boys were killed in what two international courts ruled was genocide.