SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — Hundreds of Bosnian Serbs waved flags of Serbia and Russia and banners of Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday as they staged a protest in assist of their separatist chief who seeks union with neighboring Serbia.
The protests have been held on the unmarked inside border in Bosnia that separates the nation into two entities – the Bosnian Serb Republika Srpska and the Bosniak-Croat federation – as known as for underneath the U.S.-mediated peace deal that ended the nation’s 1992-95 warfare.
The Serb protesters chanted slogans in opposition to Bosnia being a single state. They briefly blocked site visitors between the 2 entities, however there have been no main incidents reported.
“We were always on the side of winners,” stated Ljubisa Cosic, a Bosnia Serb official. “We were always on the side of freedom. So our connection to the Russian Federation and Russian people is great.”
Bosnian Serb President Milorad Dodik, who has shut ties to Putin, has overtly been striving to separate Bosnian Serb territories from the remainder of Bosnia and be part of them with neighboring Serbia. Because of that, he was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2017.
There are widespread fears that Serbia, an ally of Russia, might inflame tensions within the Balkans to divert no less than a number of the world consideration from the warfare in Ukraine.
Bosnian prosecutors are within the means of submitting prices in opposition to Dodik for his separatist actions and for defying choices by a world official overseeing peace within the nation.
He might withstand 5 years in jail if sentenced by a Bosnian court docket on these prices.
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