In a column inspired by the Victory Day in Russia, May 9, the Russian Ambassador to BiH, Igor Kalabuhov, said Saturday that Bosnia is a small European Union in itself and that with compromise, the country can become peaceful and stable even without joining the block.

“Almost eight decades have passed, and the last few years – especially vividly – have shown what the Western world is like. Russia has clearly seen its cynical pragmatism, its absolute inability to negotiate, so it has completely lost confidence in it,” the Ambassador wrote for the Glas Srpske daily, noting that today Russia has no one to talk to and that their visions of the world are different.

He added that the European Union has also degraded, institutionally and morally. That Brussels is playing a game of double standards that it also applies to the Western Balkans.

“In such circumstances, it seems to us, it is necessary to think carefully once again whether the desired membership in the European Union will bring the affirmation of the famous ‘European standards’ in the Balkans. It can be said that Bosnia and Herzegovina itself is a miniature European Union. And the agreements reached by the peoples of BiH through dialogue based on mutual respect and compromise could lead to lasting peace and strengthen internal stability – without the formal membership in European structures. But, we repeat, we will respect the sovereign choice of the people of BiH,” he said.

He then called the Russian invasion of Ukraine an artificially induced conflict for the purpose of strengthening NATO and enabling its eastward expansion, reaching the Russian border.

“Thanks to our former allies, 77 years later, we are once again forced to put out a ‘neo-Nazi’ hotspot that has erupted quite close,” Kalabukhov wrote, avoiding saying that Russia had carried out an aggression against Ukraine.