Russia remains a guarantor of the Dayton peace agreement and will continue to treat Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) as a "friendly country," the Russian Embassy in Sarajevo announced on Monday, reacting to warnings from the West that BiH could be a new spot for Russia's destabilisation of Europe.

The warnings were made during last week's visit to BiH by US Deputy Defense Minister Laura Cooper, who assessed that Russia's aggression against Ukraine is not progressing according to the Kremlin's plans, so the only thing left for Russia to do is to try and divide the Western allies and thus loosen the pressure of sanctions against it.

We must be aware that the Kremlin, facing such united resistance and strength of NATO, which has strengthened its eastern flank in an unprecedented way, is looking for ways to distract and divide us, which would allow them to regain their strength. This could be felt here in this region. We have already seen how Russia has done this before, we see how in the region and here in BiH it is instrumentalising corruption and energy supply, Cooper said in an interview with local media.

The Russian embassy reacted to this with a special comment saying that these are baseless insinuations and that Russia will find a way to achieve its goals in Ukraine. As for BiH, it said Russia will behave as if that country is its friend despite its displeasure with the statements by some of the BiH politicians who strongly condemn the Russian aggression.

The war against Ukraine is mostly condemned by Croat and Bosniak politicians, while almost everyone from Republika Srpska sides with Russia.

Despite the statements and actions by some politicians, Russia is patiently continuing to consider Bosnia and Herzegovina as a friendly country. This also applies to cooperation in the field of fuel and energy, the importance of which, as is already obvious, has become clear to many countries, the embassy said, alluding to the fact that BiH is currently completely dependent on Russia's Gazprom for the supply of energy such as gas.

The Russian embassy also stated that despite all the miserable intrigues by the Western partners, Moscow will remain a guarantor of the Dayton Agreement and will advocate for the peoples and citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina to decide their own fate.

As early as mid-2021, Russia practically excluded itself from participation in the Steering Committee of the Peace Implementation Council in Bosnia and Herzegovina (PIC), the body in charge of supervising the implementation of the Dayton Agreement. The Russians also stopped participating in the financing of the Office of the High Representative (OHR), dissatisfied with the way in which Christian Schmidt was appointed.