Just how much influence does Russia have in Bosnia and Herzegovina?
January 26, 2021
Russia wants to prevent Bosnia and Herzegovina joining NATO and the EU at all costs.
In December 2020, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was publicly snubbed by two members of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s tripartite presidency — the Bosniak representative Šefik Džaferović and his Croat colleague Željko Komšić.
It was a gesture that yet again exposed the fraught relationship between the Bosniak-Croat Federation and the Republika Srpska – the two entities that make up Bosnia and Herzegovina – and once again brought into question Russian influence in the region.
Officially, the reasoning behind why the two members of the presidency declined a scheduled meeting with Mr Lavrov was because he had previously met one-on-one with the Serb member and chairman of the presidency Milorad Dodik, during which no insignia of the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina were present.