The United States is preparing new sanctions for the people around Republika Srpska (RS) entity President Milorad Dodik and this was already announced by the US officials who were in Sarajevo, a senior adviser for global security and diplomacy at the Institute for Development Impact from Washington, and a former BiH diplomat Adnan Hadrovic told FENA.

“All those who in any way help those who are on the ‘black list’ will also be affected by, most likely, being put on the US ‘black list’,” Hadrovic said.

However, he noted that it is not only those who are around Milorad Dodik facing the prospect of being blacklisted.

“There will be new people who will be exposed to sanctions that are, so to speak, within the Bosniak and Croat political circles,” he said.

He pointed out that Dodik has been marked by intelligence structures as someone who is a threat to peace and stability in BiH and the entire region. With that, he was marked as someone “who will have to end his political career”.

“In what way will this be achieved, those are finesses. But his body language says that he has gone downhill. With every address he makes to the public, the nervousness he carries inside is absolutely visible,” says Hadrovic.

He believes that there are also objective fears, but that the international community has also prepared itself well.

“We are all aware that NATO forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina have been strengthened through the European Union's Operation Althea. That's NATO, let's be completely open. The NATO headquarters in Sarajevo has also been strengthened. So all those measures that needed to be done, from the security aspect, were done. No one is foolish to think that the United States will calmly watch any attack on the territorial integrity and sovereignty of BiH,” Hadrovic said, citing what the United States Ambassador to Bosnia, Michael Murphy, said a few days ago in an interview with N1.

When it comes to possible sanctions against persons from the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH), Hadrovic said that no one can say what the names are, but they are usually those people who are connected to corruption and crime.

When it comes to what is happening within the Croat political component, he argued that “Dragan Covic went too far” when he attacked the strategic US project, the southern gas interconnection.

“It was a direct attack, and directly linking him with Russian interests, whether he had them or not. It was in favour of Russian gas in BiH, in favour of Russian economic interests, instead of the strategic interests of BiH,” Hadrovic pointed out, adding that “BiH needs an alternative.”

At the end of the conversation with FENA, Hadrovic said that BiH's strategic interest is the West.

“Bosnia and Herzegovina, with its multi-ethnic and multi-confessional nature, belongs to European civilization. Therefore, our strategic commitment is European Union and NATO. This is where Bosnia and Herzegovina belongs with its heart and being,” Hadrovic concluded.