I have recently pointed out how Russia had been preparing an action within its panoply of Soft Power, energy, and economic warfare, and how it should be read in the broader context of the war in Ukraine, NATO enlargement and possible future actions in the Russian offensive, given its vision of things. It is essential to review it.

Thus, on 6 June 2022 the TASS News Agency reported in an article that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made statements in which he "criticised the decision of some NATO countries not to allow their aircraft to visit Serbia as unprecedented". These countries are Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Montenegro... and there is the additional circumstance that Serbia does not now have an outlet to the Adriatic Sea.

"We are not going to beat around the bush here. This is another very clear and instructive demonstration of the extent to which NATO and the EU can use the most vulgar ways to influence those who are guided by national interests and are not ready to sacrifice their principles, their dignity for the sake of the same rules imposed by the West instead of international law," Lavrov added, according to statements reported by the TASS News Agency.

This is how Russia defines one of the key elements, largely shared by China's strategy, particularly in the phrase "those who are guided by national interests and are not willing to sacrifice their principles". In other words, we are dealing with the positioning of reaction to liberal action; we are dealing with "sovereignism" used as an element of propaganda (because it is untenable today for practically everyone) versus cosmopolitanism, and as such, the way to build effective elements to contain other spurious purposes, in a struggle that I have dealt with in different aspects in this paper.

We are thus faced with the containment of Russia and the attempt to establish preventive measures with respect to the scenario that could arise, and which I anticipated in my previous commentary. For this reason, these three countries, which are NATO members, Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Montenegro, have taken this decision, also in the interest of trying to control a major destabilisation of the region, although it is going to be very complicated if it comes to that.

However, the operation of containment and isolation of Russia only has some success in Europe as a whole; the votes of the member states in the UN framework on the war in Ukraine, for their different reasons, exemplify this. In other words, Russian leaders are not declared personae non gratae in all corners of the world, and this draws a dividing line and frameworks of support and security for certain allies in the Russian and Chinese elites. Indeed, Lavrov's intention in Belgrade was to demonstrate just that, and to prepare complex strategic and tactical moves.

A prime example of what I am talking about, and which must be seen as part of a sort of "big fish tail", which would start in the Panama Canal, pass through the GIUK space to enter the Strait of Gibraltar, take on the 13 bottlenecks and the strategic space of Russia's Five Seas, go out to join the Indo-Pacific, turn in Oceania and return, encompassing the other part of the so-called "southern" space in Africa and the Atlantic on its way back along the path we have been following; and this example would be Indonesia, which has invited Putin to attend the G20 summit planned for the archipelago in November.

Strategically, Lavrov's non-visit to Belgrade is unlikely to prevent the Russians from stirring up instability in the Balkans. Indeed, next week, on 17 June 2022, Milorad Dodik, the president of Republika Srpska and secessionist leader of the Serbs, one of Bosnia and Herzegovina's two entities, is expected in Moscow, characterising his trip as necessary to ensure local 'stability', which could be heralding future instability in the Balkans in a broader strategic framework on Russia's part.

As evidence of international fears about Bosnia's resilience, the U.S. Department of the Treasury on 6 June 2022 sanctioned the President of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Marinko Cavara, for deliberately inducing an institutional stalemate and the Republika Srpska's Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Alen Seranic, accused of preparing for the secession of the Republika Srpska entity, not to mention the US administration's sanctions against Dodik himself for undermining peace efforts and the rule of law, which was instrumental in Bosnia and Herzegovina's failure to join international sanctions against Moscow.

He has repeatedly made secessionist threats over the past decade to remove the "Republic of Bosnian Serbs" from Bosnia and Herzegovina and has recently called for a peaceful break-up of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Dodik was quoted on Monday (6 June) as saying that the war in Ukraine delayed the secession of Republika Srpska from Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The change in political conditions caused by the war in Ukraine led to a delay, as the secessionist plan was not discarded, only delayed, Dodik said during the parliamentary session he called to rally support against Bosnia's imposition of sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.

"That is why we stopped the realisation of our conclusions related to the withdrawal (of Bosnian Serbs from)... state authorities," Dodik said.

Dodik said the Bosnian Serb Republic wanted to "maintain neutrality" when it came to Russia and Ukraine and was against sanctions against Russia, echoing the stance of its sponsor Serbia, the only European country that has refused to impose sanctions in a carefully considered tactical move linked to Moscow's offensive on Serbia.

With Vladimir Putin's support, Milorad Dodik has effectively initiated the secession of Republika Srpska from Bosnia and Herzegovina, which can be seen as part of the tug of war between Russia and China on the one hand, and the United States and the European Union on the other, over the Western Balkans, which we discussed the specific case of Albania, precisely at a time when it is thirty years since the siege of Sarajevo began on 6 April 2022, and the legacy left by the Clinton administration in Dayton in 1995 threatens to be shattered.

In early November, UN High Representative Christian Schmidt warned of the danger of the disintegration of the Serb-Croat-Muslim confederation, describing as "real" the risk of a return to the inter-ethnic conflict that ravaged the former Yugoslav republic in the 1990s. This warning echoed the warning contained in the letter sent by Bosnian Foreign Minister Bisera Turković to the UN and NATO Secretaries General and the foreign ministers of UN Security Council member states and the European Union.

The secessionist campaign was launched by the Serb member of the tripartite presidency, Milorad Dodik, in reaction to the criminal code reform enacted by Schmidt's predecessor, which introduced prison sentences of up to five years for those who deny the Srebrenica genocide or glorify war crimes committed between 1992 and 1995. Bosnia's tripartite presidency has three members, representing Orthodox Serbs, Catholic Croats and Bosnian Muslims, and is the commander of the country's armed forces. Zeljko Komsic, the Croat member of the presidency, attacked Dodik's comments, calling them "a criminal act of rebellion".

The main element to take into account, given the scenario in Ukraine and its consequences, is the escalation in recent months of Dodik's usual bellicose separatist rhetoric, but which, unlike at other times, has been followed by concrete actions that seem to shape a strategy aimed at achieving secession by degrees, through the imposition of a series of "faits accomplis" that make it inevitable at a given moment, following the Russian model, as I discussed here.

In early October 2021 Dodik announced that the Bosnian judiciary, security forces and intelligence agencies would be expelled from Republika Srpska territory and replaced by similar but Republika Srpska institutions. The next step could be the Republika Srpska's withdrawal from the federal army and the (re)constitution of Bosnian Serb military forces. This move has already been announced by Dodik himself at the press conference on 14 October 2021, which is therefore after the meeting with the ambassadors of the EU countries.

On 20 October the Serbian entity's assembly approved a provision establishing its own agency for the procurement of medicines, corroborating Dodik's separatist threats in formal terms for the first time. At the same time, Dodik openly referred to "friends" who would come to the Serbs' aid in the event of Western intervention. He also cited the precedent of Slovenia, which in 1992 gained independence from Yugoslavia with the use of force; to this we would add that he immediately based his rhetoric on the anti-terrorist exercises conducted on 22 October by Bosnian Serb police in the area of Mount Jahorina, from which Serb snipers and artillery attacked civilians in Sarajevo during the 1992-1995 war.

On 10 February 2022, Bosnian Serb parliamentarians raised the level of defiance further by voting in favour of a draft law, due to be passed by 10 May, establishing a judicial system parallel to the central one.

So Dodik's separatist rhetoric, as can be seen, is nothing new, but this time his ambitions appear to have Russia's full support. An obvious manifestation of such support is exemplified by the escalation, which gained momentum precisely at the time of the meeting in Belgrade with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. On the other hand, the former Republika Srpska president's reference to "friends" then seemed, in October 2021, an indication of Moscow's willingness to test the Bosnian terrain to test Washington's reaction, of course the current scenario would go in the direction I already pointed out in a recent piece of analysis, and which I again insist needs to be revisited. This would fully manifest the risk of Bosnia and Herzegovina becoming the Balkan epicentre of Russia's clash and strategic gamble.

On 2 December 2021, the Bosnian Serb leader was received by Vladimir Putin, winning the Russian president's support in the dispute with the other constituent components of the Bosnian federation. Eight days after Dodik's visit to Moscow, the Republika Srpska parliament formally initiated the procedure for the departure of the Bosnian Armed Forces, the security services, the fiscal and judicial system, calling for the definition of a new constitution for the Serb entity and declaring the measures taken by the High Representative for Bosnia unconstitutional.

On the other hand, on 28 February 2022 - four days after the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine - Dodik and Sergey Lavrov held a telephone conversation in order to define the necessary steps for the implementation of the agreement of 2 December 2021, reiterating the joint commitment of Moscow and the Bosnian Serbs to combat attempts to interpret the Dayton agreement in favour of NATO and the EU and to the detriment of the Republika Srpska. The agreement reached in the Kremlin also provides for the construction of a second section of the TurkStream gas pipeline between Rača (on the Republika Srpska-Serb border) and Banja Luka. Not to mention the way it unloads a punch on America's liberal and global vision.

In addition to Moscow and Belgrade, Zagreb could also indirectly be among the Serbian leader's so-called "friends". Would it be a coincidence that Dodik and his Croatian counterpart, Dragan Čović, had met on those dates in 2021 with Croatian President Zoran Milanović and Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, respectively? Could a potential axis, otherwise natural if it comes to that, between Belgrade and Zagreb be in play? I am thinking of Croatia's ambition to favour the birth of a Croatian entity similar to Republika Srpska, on the basis of the stalled reform of the electoral law, which, by the way, penalises Bosnian Croats, and thus plays into the hands of the separatists.

We also have the role of Turkey, which must also be seen in a broader scenario such as the one I am perceiving and pointing out in this document and in this other document. Of course, Turkey constitutes itself as the protector of the Muslim component, and has obviously already been establishing its positions, as on 2 November 2021 Recep Tayyip Erdoğan received Bakir Izetbegović, a former Bosnian member of the presidential council and leader of the main Muslim party, warning that Bosnia and Herzegovina is facing "the worst crisis since the end of the war". A sign that Ankara has been sensing recent tensions to project its rhetoric in the Balkans, threading with an increasingly shared perception at the strategic level regarding the Russian threat to its proximity actors.

Hence, in May 2018 Erdoğan chose Sarajevo to kick off the election campaign for the presidential elections. On the other hand, in early January 2014, when Erdoğan and his former ally Fethullah Gülen were fighting to eliminate each other, thousands of Bosnian Muslims gathered in Sarajevo's main mosques to pray for the then Turkish prime minister, who has invested heavily in recent years in restoring the Islamic world with the reference to the "Jerusalem of Europe", the only city mentioned twice by Erdogan in the key "balcony speech" of 12 June 2011.

However, and despite its inescapable importance, Turkey's specific weight in BiH does not stem from its privileged relationship with the Muslim component, but rather from its ability to balance the latter with more than excellent relations with the Serbs of Bosnia and Serbia, another element that Turkey could count on to gain weight in the new definition of the space and the strategy to be followed, which it wishes to reaffirm by aggressively negotiating with Finland and Sweden and its entry into NATO.

Indeed, on the occasion of his visit to Turkey in November, Dodik made sure to make it abundantly clear that Erdoğan's intervention is essential to resolve the Bosnian issue fairly, adding that the Turkish president "would not do anything that would harm Serbs and Croats" and underlining the importance of the excellent relations between Ankara and Belgrade, which according to the Serbian ambassador in Ankara are in full swing, so much so that we have to note that in October 2017, Serbian President Vučić brought the entire Council of Ministers to the Belgrade airport runway to extend a cordial welcome to Erdoğan, who was landing just at midnight, to which one of the pieces of Turkish influence must be added, as the Serbs intend to equip themselves with Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drones.

I should also put on record that on 18 January 2022, Erdoğan and Vučić had reached an agreement in principle to both manage the process of resolving the Bosnian crisis, although this by no means excludes both Ankara and, to a lesser extent, Belgrade positioning themselves at the centre of the Bosnian game in a way that might be in line with other interests, hence the significance of the Russian move I noted in the recent piece of analysis with respect to Serbia and the way Russia would have steadfastly sought to ensnare it; a move, by the way, that was braided by Russia at the same time as Turkey was doing the same.

The US has maintained a position on what is happening in BiH that has been completely overdone - another aspect that demonstrates certain flaws in Russian rhetoric, as it is a view more befitting someone who expects understandings rather than outright clashes. How do we know? Washington's special envoy for the Western Balkans, Gabriel Escobar, has limited himself to setting out a proposal for Sarajevo's entry into the European Union as a solution to the crisis, which is already unrealistic in the medium term.

The Europeans' positions have been the result of a series of elements that, in the absence of an efficient and sustainable federal mechanism in the European Union, have ended up being awkward, divided and even contradictory. In the 6 April debate in the Bundestag, German Minister for European Affairs Anna Luhrmann made explicit reference to the secession of the Republika Srpska, while Minister for Economic Cooperation Svenja Schulze called on the European Commission to impose sanctions on the Serbian entity. Punitive measures to which Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó, on a visit to Mostar, had already declared his opposition the day before.

Viktor Orbán is weaving his web in the Balkans: he subsidises "brother parties", has his trusted men buy the media, and mobilises the Hungarian minorities in Serbia and Romania, where transfers of Hungarian public money are directed towards Transylvania. Indeed, the Maidan Revolution in Ukraine and the Donbass war have brought Russia and Hungary even closer together, as the latter also has irredentist claims on Ukrainian Transcarpatia, to which the Ukrainians traditionally respond firmly, creating one of the gaps over which to exploit contradictions.

It is in the Balkans that Orbán's influence is felt, from Slovenia's Janez Janša to North Macedonia's VMRO-DPMNE, via Boïko Borisov Bulgaria (and to which Iliyana Kondareva contributed this interesting analysis of what Petkov's coming to power could mean in this respect); To this must be added the extreme right, Eurosceptic and xenophobic "Hungarian-style", which is increasingly seductive, enters into ill-concealed competition with Germany and, relatively speaking, with Austria. ... and overlaps with China's expansion, while Russia has also been making its strategic moves. It is from this perspective that we should read Orbán's advocacy of Serbia's immediate integration into the European Union, where there is a Hungarian minority and expansion interests.

All this contributes to the reaffirmation of the deep axis linking Budapest and Banja Luka, which has been reaffirmed, even publicly, on the occasion of the meeting in early November 2021 between Viktor Orbán and Dodik in Laktaši, after which Orbán proclaimed himself as a defence lawyer for the Bosnian Serbs... and the Bosnian Croats, whom Szijjártó reminded that they can count on Hungarian support.

At this point, having read all the references, you can consider the answer to the question posed in the title of this post.

Geopolítica - Geopolitics