Speaking to N1, political analyst and founder of the Forum for Ethnic Relations, Dusan Janjic, said he was not optimistic and stated that there is a risk that the security situation will escalate and turn into localized conflicts. Pročitaj više

“Speaking to N1 earlier, High Representative Christian Schmidt spoke about the danger of armed conflicts, and today (yesterday at the UN Security Council, op.a.) he said that ‘whoever talks about war is wrong, that there are no prospects for future conflicts,’ but I think he was wrong then and now. What exists, and we cannot deny it, is that a deep security crisis in BiH has existed since February 2022, when the Security Council pointed to BiH and the hot spot in Kosovo. Schmidt himself talked about those plans in 2023, which we had the opportunity to see later. If there is no risk, then why are NATO plans being made, not only for political but also for military action? There is a risk that the security situation will escalate and turn into localized conflicts between individual paramilitaries and then between unarmed citizens,” Janjic said.

He noted that Russia's interest is to stir things up and raise tensions so that the West must solve two things – for example, to defend the credibility in BiH, especially the US, which stopped the bloodshed in Dayton. The second point that is important for Putin's Russia, the analyst said, is that it measures its strength against NATO so that NATO is divided within itself so that it cannot expand towards its territories. That is why there is a war in Ukraine and that is why they invest so much in Dodik and Orban.

When asked what the US and the West can do, he said that judging from the statements from the West, one can conclude that they are very serious in their intentions.

“Russia is not ready to change any borders because of Dodik and Serbia, that's the difference. She does not like the change of borders, just as she does not like the story of genocide because there are some court proceedings against her. The West must defend its integrity, first of all its internal unity, which is being undermined by the various political attitudes of individual NATO countries, and confirm with such an example that it’s capable of preserving what it has done so far. Putin is not interested in any experiments to change the borders. The West is ready. Politicians from America and Germany, and Britain, which are important states, should be listened to. The West is ready to take preventive actions and localize the conflict if it even breaks out, as was the case in Banjska, Kosovo, to reduce it to an incident and dismantle the structures that led to it,” Janjic pointed out.

Authorities from Bosnia’s Republika Srpska (RS) entity planned to hold the Assembly of all Serbs in Srebrenica, after the UN General Assembly session that would pass the Srebrenica Resolution. RS President Milorad Dodik asked Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic to support everything that the RS does, including a “peaceful secession”. Janjic was asked if the UNGA decision would be used for the initiation of a conflict in the country.

“It doesn't have to be. Dodik can imagine whatever he wants, but we know that for 10 years he has been announcing what is not happening. Whether he will use part of his special police forces to prevent his arrest, as he announced, or realize the idea that BiH laws are not applied – that is his decision. But whether someone behind his back will start that or some other formation – he has no idea. He has a very weak intelligence community behind him. The RS has institutions that can work to some extent. The modern era is an era of conflict management, not peace. It is not a fight for lasting peace as we believed in the 90s. It’s a struggle to stabilize peace, that is, to keep security at a certain level. The level is not the number of victims. We saw that cynical terrible argument against Srebrenica, ‘if eight thousand people die it’s not genocide’, so it turned out that even the measure for Netanyahu's government is neither 700,000, nor is it 15 million Ukrainians who have already left Ukraine following the Russian intervention. That measure can be when you have offended the strongest party. I always say don't insult the strongest party. It's Biden, who seems weak because he can show exactly on your example what he can't show on Netanyahu or someone else. When moving from a volatile crisis to individual actions by special, state or parastatal armies, it’s a decision that happens that you often don't even know about. I know of several decisions in the 90s that Milosevic was informed about only when they were implemented,” Janjic told N1.

Should the war break out, Janjic believes that Serbia is not ready for a classic armed intervention.

“I think that Serbia is overplaying its game, it has gone too far in this security-political marketing and is abusing the forces it doesn't have in order to wage war with anyone. Serbia and Serbs live in an environment that has opted for NATO. In such a situation, there would be an association of all against one,” the analyst concluded.

Speaking about the possible NATO and EUFOR response to the “peaceful separation”, announced by Dodik, N1’s interlocutor said that such threats are empty.

“Representatives of the RS opposition were not present at the forum “RS is calling” and did not give it legitimacy. Institutions are still functioning in the RS parliament, there is also an announced Bosniak veto, so in my opinion, Dodik is threatening with a rifle that cannot fire. But it creates a narrative and an atmosphere in which a third party can fire. Dodik is a phenomenon that the more you mention it, the more important it is to itself, but in reality, it is increasingly irrelevant. The West very much controls people and players like Dodik. Those players rarely go to war, but they create that atmosphere,” Janjic pointed out.