The story about the 300-year-old Icon which BiH Presidency member Milorad Dodik gave to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov earlier this month serves to divert attention from a bigger scandal – the fact that other two Presidency members Sefik Dzaferovic and Zeljko Komsic refused to meet Lavrov in Sarajevo, Bosnia's capital, President of BiH's Republika Srpska (RS) Zeljka Cvijanovic said Wednesday.

“In that sense, this noise is an attempt to balance the said scandal and to abuse the situation which occurred after Lavrov's visit, while some – Milorad Dodik – are in self-isolation, experiencing health issues due to coronavirus,” Cvianovic said.

According to her, “the political Sarajevo, Federation entity (FBiH) media and the opposition in the RS have jointly accepted the story the story of a stolen Ukrainian religious relic, but that so far no one has seen a reaction from the other side.”

With the story, she said, the “political Sarajevo wants to diminish he importance of Lavrov's visit,” and that the FBiH is unaware how many times Russian helped not just the RS, but the entire BiH.