The President of the Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, after voting in the local elections in Serbia, continues his journey to Russia, a country he wholeheartedly supports. In Russia, he will attend the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, hoping to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. As usual, Dodik brings with him new-old promises and familiar rhetoric directed against Bosnia and Herzegovina but in favor of Moscow.

On his official page, Dodik announced that in Russia, he will state, “RS will not allow BiH to impose sanctions on Moscow at the state level.” Although this is not the first time Dodik has placed entity authorities above state authorities, in this case, as in many decisions where representatives from RS hold state positions, their vote counts and they can block the mentioned sanctions accordingly.

“At the state level, BiH has not decided to impose sanctions, that is, sanctions against Russia have not been officially introduced. The best confirmation of this is my recent meeting with senior European officials who asked when we will finally impose sanctions on Russia. This means there are no sanctions, and we will continue this way, although it is a very difficult position,” Dodik claims.

He also mentioned the West, which, as he states, “daily demands from RS to support sanctions against Russia within BiH,” and once again took the opportunity to criticize the authorities there.

“I cannot be grateful to the Americans who do not even want to hear what we think, but try to decide. That is the essence of the problem, they do not talk to us, but they decide about us,” stated the president of the RS entity.

He also said he hopes to meet with Putin and Lavrov at the forum, from where he will once again, as every time he went to Russia, return encouraged to spread rhetoric of division and hatred in BiH.