The Russian far-right movement's ties to the Balkans

An advisor from the ruling party in Visegrad, in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina, has promoted the Russian ultranationalist organization Rusov, whose members participate in the Russian aggression against Ukraine.

The International Movement for Russian-Slavic Unity and Revival (RUSOV) maintains contacts with several far-right groups from Serbia, while the leader of this movement, Andrei Rodionov, has visited the countries of the region several times.

In April, a photo was published on this group's Telegram channel showing Velibor Zekovic, an advisor to the Socialist Party of Republika Srpska in the Visegrad Assembly, posing with the Rusov flag on Zagllavak Hill, near Visegrad.

In his company is also Zhelko Djurovic, who about ten years ago introduced himself as the head of the Serbian branch of the All-Russian Movement Kosovo Front, which the Ukrainian authorities have described as an entity that organizes the sending of people from the Balkans to the war front in Ukraine. Djurovic also has an emblem with the Rusov symbol on his jacket sleeve.

The photo's description states that Zekovic and Djurovic are "Serbian allies of the Rusov movement" and that they are "at the place where in 1993 Russian volunteers fought and shed blood side by side with Serbs for Serbian Bosnia."

Velibor Zekovic did not respond to REL's calls and messages to talk about his connections with the Rusov movement. His Socialist Party of Republika Srpska has not commented on the photo either.

REL also wrote to Željko Đurović via the Russian network Vkontakte and email, but he did not respond.

No response has come from the Rusov movement either.

Bosnian politics' ties to the Russian right

"It is paradoxical that parties that nominally call themselves socialist flirt with right-wing organizations and have no connection to the ideology of the left," says Djordje Vujatovic, a journalist from Banja Luka who follows topics related to foreign influences in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

However, he emphasizes that contacts of political actors from the Bosnia and Herzegovina entity, Republika Srpska, with Russian right-wing groups are not the exception, but the rule.

"In the past, we have had cases when many officials and high-ranking functionaries have participated in events where Aleksandar Zaldostanov, known by the nickname 'The Surgeon', the leader of the Russian biker group 'Night Wolves', who is on the United States' blacklist, was also present," says Vujatovic and adds.

"All mainstream politics is tied to the Russian Federation."

Djordje Vujatović sees the reasons for the rapprochement of the main parties from Republika Srpska with Russia primarily in the opportunism of political actors. He emphasizes that public opinion in Republika Srpska is largely inclined towards the Russian narrative and the policies of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"Political actors have realized that this is advantageous for coming to power and everyone is riding the wave of this populism and playing with the card of historical ties with Russia, Pan-Slavism and Orthodoxy as a unifying factor," he says.

On the other hand, adds Vujatovic, for organizations from Russia the most important thing is to spread their ideas beyond Russia's borders.

"The Balkans, due to historical ties, is the most suitable space for this activity through representatives and for the demonstration of belonging to the multipolar world, as they call it," he considers.

Russo-Serbian War Connections

Zekovic and Djurovic unfurled the flag of the Russian organization behind an improvised cross, made from empty grenade launcher containers, in a place where members of the Army of Republika Srpska and volunteers from Russia operated during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 90s.

For years, war veterans' associations from Republika Srpska have been organizing the celebration of the "Day of Russian Volunteers." Unlike previous years, this year the authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina banned Russian volunteers from entering the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, so the celebration was attended by representatives of veterans' associations from the smallest Bosnian entity and family members of volunteers from the Russian Federation.

Among those denied entry to Bosnia was Aleksandar Kravchenko, a former Russian volunteer in Bosnia and founder of the Kosovo Front organization, to which Željko Đurović is also affiliated. His organization was active even before the full invasion of Ukraine began, during the conflict in the eastern part of the country, in the Donbas region.

Ukrainian authorities have described the Kosovo Front as an organization that plays a role in recruiting volunteers from the Balkans, but Kravchenko denied this in an earlier interview with REL.

In the context of citizens volunteering for the war in Ukraine, Đorđe Vujatović considers that contacts between Russian and Serbian actors are not too worrying for the internal security of Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, he emphasizes that the problem lies in the fact that the state rarely sanctions citizens who participate in foreign wars.

“Going to foreign fronts is reprehensible, but the state does not react, partly because some of these people have received Russian citizenship,” says Vujatović. Russian-Serbian ties remained active even after the Kremlin launched a military invasion of neighboring Ukraine in February 2022. The exact number of Bosnian citizens who have gone as mercenaries to the war front in Ukraine is unknown, but Europol announced in 2025 that among the hundreds of identified members of the Russian mercenary groups Wagner and Redut there are also citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, without providing further details.

One of the most prominent figures is Davor Savicic, a Bosnian Serb who holds the rank of colonel in the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, known as the GRU. Ukrainian authorities have opened criminal proceedings against him for war crimes. In early 2023, a video was posted on Telegram showing two masked soldiers who, speaking in Serbian, said they had joined Russian forces in Ukraine, specifically the Sudoplatov battalion.

Introduced under the code names "Danube" and "Sava", they described themselves as "Serbian patriots and Russophiles" who had come to help their "Russian brothers".

Their identities have not been officially determined, but media in Bosnia and Herzegovina revealed that they are citizens of this country, against whom an arrest warrant has been issued by Interpol for criminal offenses.

In the video where "Danube" and "Sava" were speaking, they were holding the emblem of the Rusov movement.

The yellow falcon with the symbol of the solar cross – which is widespread in the iconography of far-right groups – is also seen on the flag that Velibor Zekovic and Željko Đurović unfurled in April 2026.

What is the Russov movement?

It is about the symbol of a Russian association, which in its official manifesto lists as one of its fundamental goals the restoration of "historical Great Russia, the protector of the Slavs, the bastion of traditional values, and the guarantor of the construction of a socially just society."

The Rusov movement supported pro-Russian separatists after the outbreak of conflict in eastern Ukraine in 2014. Rodionov, according to his claims, founded the Phoenix unit, which fought as part of the Prizrak brigade, which also included some volunteers from Serbia, which REL has previously reported on. In a photograph, allegedly taken in 2015 in the territory of the so-called “Luhansk People’s Republic”, Rodionov is seen in a camouflage uniform holding, together with another man, a red flag with the far-right symbol, also known as the “Slavic swastika”.

After the invasion began, Rodionov posted photos of himself in uniform and weapons on Telegram, claiming that in 2023 he joined the Volunteer Assault Corps of the Russian Federation.

Rusov and the Balkans

This movement was founded in 2012, and its founder, Andrei Rodionov, has stayed in the Balkans several times, which he has documented with photographs on his social networks.

In an interview with Radio Belgrade in 2020, he said that his movement is joined by "not only other organizations and movements, but also parties."

Media in North Macedonia have reported that Rodionov has visited the country several times since 2017, while near Skopje, in 2018, he organized a camp for teaching martial arts and "spiritual traditions of Ancient Russia."

In Serbia, Rodionov maintains contacts with the unregistered far-right group People's Patrol, known for its anti-migrant actions. With the group's leader, Damnjan Knezhević, Rodionov marked in Belgrade, in 2021, the 100th anniversary of the exodus of Russian monarchists from Russia after the October Revolution.

Earlier that year, Knežević had visited Moscow, where he met with, among others, Andrei Rodionov. Meanwhile, Rusov became involved with the Serbian Falcon, a lesser-known far-right group that in July 2024 organized a rally in Novi Sad dedicated to the “liberation of Srebrenica,” referring to the anniversary of the genocide that Republika Srpska forces, under the command of Ratko Mladić, committed during the capture of the enclave in 1995.

Mladic was sentenced to life imprisonment by the International Tribunal in The Hague for this and other crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In a photo published in May 2025 on the Serbian Falcon group's Instagram profile, Andrej Rodionov is seen posing with three masked people, wearing uniforms and weapons, while the flags of Rusov and Serbian Falcon are unfurled.

The photo's description reads: "Russian comrades-in-arms with Serbian hawks on the front line of defending Orthodoxy," while the location is Donetsk, located in eastern Ukraine.

Flags with symbols of the Rusov movement have been waved during protests in support of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which have in some cases been organized by far-right groups in Belgrade.