Ilya Serov, a media attaché at the Russian embassy in Skopje, was among them.

On April 8, Serov had told a local media outlet that the expulsion of five other Russian diplomats from North Macedonia following the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine would receive “an appropriate response”. A week later, Serov found himself in a new group of six Russian diplomats being expelled by the Skopje authorities.

North Macedonia’s Foreign Ministry said on April 15 that the Russian diplomats had been expelled based on information that they had engaged in activities contrary to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. The statement does not give the diplomats’ names, but Russian bikers posting on social networks reveal the identity of at least one of them.

The Russian diplomats were given five days to leave North Macedonia.

But in May 2023, a year after being expelled from Skopje, 25-year old Serov appeared at a gala concert by the Sarajevo Philharmonic Orchestra at Sarajevo City Hall staged to mark Victory Day over Fascism, also attended by other representatives of the international community and local authorities. By that time, he had already been put on Bosnia and Herzegovina’s official list of accredited diplomats.

The Sarajevo city administration and mayor Benjamina Karic organised the concert. The city administration did not respond to a request for comment.

But Serov is not the only Russian diplomat expelled by other European states after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine who has been accredited as part of the Russian mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Detektor journalists have identified at least one more Russian diplomat who was expelled from his previous mission in the European Union and is now in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The redeployed Russian diplomat recently had an official meeting with the director of the Security Ministry’s Service for Foreigners’ Affairs, the agency that oversees foreign citizens’ presence in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Read the rest of the story on Detektor.ba web portal.