Bosnia of two persuasions and Russian influence through Republika Srpska

Society in Bosnia and Herzegovina lives between two beliefs.

On one side, there are citizens who support the integration of this country into NATO and the EU, while on the other side there are those who oppose this.

Consequently, by opposing NATO, that part of Bosnia's citizens accepts and welcomes Russian influence in the country.

According to a report conducted by Dr. Rumena Filipova (president and co-founder of the Global Analytics Institute), a large percentage of Bosnian citizens show continued support for NATO integration.

“A majority of BiH citizens show continued support for NATO integration. However, opposition has also remained high (near 40%). Support for NATO in 2020 reached 57%. Moreover, 38% of the population in 2019 said that full NATO membership would best serve BiH’s future. In 2020, not only did this percentage increase to 48%, but the number of those who think that BiH “should have no relationship with NATO” also decreased (from 23% to 20%).”

Based on these statistics, Russia is doing everything it can to extend its influence in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

One of the main areas targeted by Russian influence in the country is the media.

Russian influence in Bosnia and Herzegovina extends from Republika Srpska (RS), which operates under Serbian directives.

“Russia’s media influence in BiH is concentrated in the RS. Rather than engaging in direct media ownership, Russia relies on its political and economic support for the long-serving president of the RS, Milorad Dodik. Dodik, in turn, exercises control over local media through politically motivated legal attacks against critical media outlets and selective funding for those that are loyal,” the report states.

In some media outlets in BiH, specifically in RS, pro-Russian narratives can often be seen and heard. These media outlets are mainly those that serve divisive and malignant policies and ideologies.

"Serbian edition of Sputnik represents a media outlet directly owned by the Kremlin. As a result of linguistic similarities between countries in this region, online news and radio broadcasts of the Serbian edition of Sputnik are freely consumed in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

RTRS is the most influential media outlet in Republika Srpska (RS). The political ties of this outlet to Russia are reflected in the close relations between the RS government and Russia, i.e., Dodik and Putin.

Voice of Srpska shows no evidence of direct links, either political or financial, to Russia. However, the media outlet is owned by Nezavisne Novine, a newspaper of Željko Kopanja, who is considered to be a close ally of Milorad Dodik and the ruling party, SNSD.”

The above-mentioned statistics from Dr. Filipova's report clearly show the difficulties that Bosnian society faces (in terms of pro-Russian pressure), despite the fact that many of them have a Euro-Atlantic conviction.