Russian President Vladimir Putin has received President of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik at the Kremlin on Tuesday night. He arrived in Moscow after a court in Bosnia and Herzegovina issued an international arrest warrant for Dodik, the leader of the Serb half of the country.
According to the Kremlin, Presidential Aide Yury Ushakov also attended on behalf of Russia. Representing Republika Srpska were Zeljko Budimir, the Minister of Scientific and Technological Development and Higher Education, and Dusko Perovic, the Head of the Republika Srpska Representative Office in the Russian Federation.
Putin met with Dodik in his executive office at the Senate Palace, where the two presidents shook hands. "I am glad to see you in Moscow," Putin said at the start of their conversation.
In a video posted outside the Kremlin, Dodik expressed that every visit to Moscow begins with paying tribute to the Soviet soldiers who defended Europe from Nazism at the Grave of the Unknown Soldier.
He also mentioned his plans to return to Moscow on May 9 to celebrations on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the Victory in the World War II.
The pro-Russia Dodik has repeatedly threatened to secede Republika Srpska from Bosnia and Herzegovina. This poses a significant threat to the Dayton Accords, which were brokered to bring peace to Bosnia following the sectarian violence that erupted after the collapse of Yugoslavia.
The 1995 agreement established two principal entities: the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which comprises Croats and Muslims, and the Republika Srpska, which consists of Bosnian Serbs. Together, these entities form the single state of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Last week Bosnia's state court has requested that Interpol issue an international "red notice" for the arrest of Milorad Dodik after he left the country for Israel, despite a nationwide arrest warrant still hanging over him.
The Prosecutor’s Office said that the two politicians - Dodik and Nenad Stevandic, speaker of the entity assembly, “by using their high-ranking positions in the Republika Srpska entity, avoided the legally prescribed border control procedures, crossed the state border and left Bosnia and Herzegovina”.
"All of this suggests that both individuals could be abroad at any given moment, which provides grounds for action," the court said in a statement Thursday, adding that the matter was now in the hands of global police agency Interpol.
A court in Bosnia's capital, Sarajevo, last month sentenced Dodik to one year in prison for defying the country's top international overseer and barred him from office for six years.
But Dodik and his allies say they do not recognize the Bosnian prosecution office and will not go to Sarajevo for questioning.
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Prosecutors in Milan have opened an investigation into allegations that Italian nationals paid Bosnian Serb soldiers for trips to the hills around Sarajevo in the 1990s so they could shoot civilians during the city’s four-year siege.
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