The controversial president of Bosnia’s Serb autonomous region has reportedly arrived in Moscow, just days after a court requested an international arrest notice for him.
Milorad Dodik, who leads the Republika Srpska government, posted a video of himself at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier next to the wall of the Kremlin in the Russian capital on Monday evening.
While he gave no details about his plans for his visit, he wrote on X that he had been invited by Russian President Vladimir Putin to return on May 9 “to mark the 80th anniversary of the victory over fascism.”
Bosnian state prosecutors had last month called for his arrest for ignoring a court summons amid a serious internal power struggle between the Serb-majority province and central state authorities in Sarajevo.
Last week, a court asked Interpol to issue a ‘red notice,’ urging states worldwide to arrest him, along with another senior Bosnian Serb politician who had gone abroad.
But the pro-Russian Dodik has shown defiance, traveling to Serbia and Israel over the past few days before appearing in Moscow.
In a video posted on X, he spoke of the suffering of Russians and Serbs in World War II and praised Putin, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported. He also mentioned that Putin had now “another counterpart who is important to him in the fight against the globalist elite, and that is [U.S.] President [Donald] Trump.”
Bosnia engulfed in crisis
An advocate of seeing the Serb-dominated regions of Bosnia joining neighboring Serbia, Dodik is subject to U.S. and U.K. sanctions and has been heavily criticized by the European Union for his recent push to extend the autonomous government’s authority over its territory.
The increasing tension over the last few months was largely prompted by a court decision to jail Dodik—in absentia—and ban him from politics over his approval of laws suspending rulings by the Bosnian constitutional court and an international peace envoy.
Dodik regards several Bosnian state institutions as illegitimate.
In response to his jail sentence, his government banned the centrally-run judicial system from operating on its territory and called on security personnel and officials working for centrally-run institutions to take up jobs with the regional authorities instead.
While a national court formally suspended these measures, Dodik’s government implemented them, leading to the call for his arrest on charges of attacking the constitutional order.
Dodik backed by Moscow
Bosnia was internally divided into the Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina—populated mainly by Bosniaks and Croats—as part of the peace accords to end the 1992-1995 war, in which over 100,000 people were killed.
The role of the international peace envoy was also created at this time to ensure that the country does not slip back into conflict.
European peacekeepers are also on the ground in Bosnia. The force’s commander announced last month that troop numbers would be increased, adding that they committed to maintaining the country’s “hard-won stability.”
Although Dodik’s recent actions have been widely condemned by Western countries, with the head of NATO saying he fully supports Bosnia’s territorial integrity, Dodik is backed by countries such as Serbia and Russia.
The Kremlin called the jail sentence handed down to Dodik earlier this year “a strike on stability in the Balkan region.”
