Citizenship for "special benefit": What happened to Russian businesses in Bosnia?

When Mikhail Litovchenko obtained citizenship of Bosnia and Herzegovina at the end of August 2024, government institutions declared him a person of special interest, who could bring economic benefits to Bosnia.

Almost two years later, companies associated with it are recording losses, one has changed ownership, while the accounts of another company have been blocked.

Litovchenko is one of about 40 foreign nationals to whom the Bosnian Council of Ministers has granted citizenship since the beginning of 2023, assessing that they bring particular benefit to Bosnia.

The law allows foreigners to obtain citizenship on this basis without meeting all the requirements that apply in the regular naturalization procedure.

However, the system does not provide for a mechanism to subsequently verify whether the business plans and investments that led to the acquisition of citizenship by foreign individuals have been fulfilled, nor who should do so.

The Bosnian Ministry of Civil Affairs now wants to tighten the criteria for Bosnian citizenship on this basis by amending the regulations, with warnings that the recommendations have been given lightly in some cases.

What happened to the companies linked to Litovchenko?

The company "Tourist Innovations", which Litovchenko founded a few months before obtaining citizenship, has since changed its name and headquarters, and is now run as the company "Softio" in Pale.

It is registered as a computer programming company, has one employee, and according to data from the CompanyWall platform, in 2025 it operated with a loss of around 20.000 euros.

At the time he applied for Bosnian citizenship, he was also affiliated with the Sarajevo-based company Express Consulting, which he acquired in 2022.

The company was owned by him until June 2025, when it changed hands and its accounts are now blocked, business records show.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty was unable to reach Litovchenko to discuss the results of his business since receiving citizenship. Most of the phone numbers at the companies he is affiliated with are not working, and email inquiries went unanswered.

What "special economic benefit" does Bosnia enjoy by granting citizenship to Litovchenko?

In the case of this Russian citizen, the recommendation for admission to Bosnian citizenship was made by the Chamber of Commerce of the Republika Srpska entity. The Chamber did not respond to RFE/RL's question on what basis and what information it had about his business and plans.

House Speaker Goran Racic, who did not return calls, had previously told Radio Free Europe that the recommendations are made based on business plans that he intends to implement.

Before obtaining Bosnian citizenship, Litovchenko was known to be doing business in neighboring Croatia. According to business registry data, there are currently two companies in that country that have been operating at a loss in recent years.

One of them, Zagreb-based "Business Solution", was taken over in March 2025, and until then the director was Russian citizen Anna Alferova.

Alferova is also mentioned in Bosnia, given that at the end of May last year, she also received citizenship, by decision of the Bosnian Council of Ministers.

She received citizenship as a person of interest in the field of sports, recommended by the Biathlon Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which began operating three months before citizenship was granted.

Until the publication of the text, the association had not responded to Radio Free Europe's question regarding the reasons for the recommendation and how it specifically contributes to the development of biathlon.

Litovchenko is not the only one

Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, five Russian citizens have also been granted Bosnian citizenship under an accelerated distribution for persons with special benefits, while one application is still pending.

After it was assessed that they could be beneficial to the Bosnian economy, in September and October of last year, Ljudmila Budilova and Evgenij Budilov received citizenship.

She is the owner and director of the company "Eva Genesis" in Banja Luka, which, according to data from the court registry, was founded in March 2025 with a founding capital of one convertible mark.

Radio Free Europe was unable to contact Budilov, and the company's available phone number was answered by lawyer Miloš Kudra, who briefly said that he represented the company in several procedures, but that he had no contact with the owners.

The address where it is registered houses about a dozen companies, mostly law firms. The name of the company “Eva Genesis”, which is registered for foreign trade activities, is not prominently displayed on the signs at the entrance to the building.

This company went public after Ilia Perekopskii, vice president of the Telegram platform, applied for Bosnian citizenship earlier this year.

The Chamber of Commerce of Republika Srpska, which made the recommendation, stated that it intends to buy a portion of its shares and that it will use the company to make investments in digital marketing, information technology and the fashion industry.

Avoiding sanctions?

Bosnia maintains a visa-free regime with Russia, even though the European Union has been seeking for years to align its visa policy with that of the bloc.

After the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, some Russian entrepreneurs moved their businesses to Bosnia. Others previously told Radio Free Europe that they did so because of sanctions and problems with international payments, in order to more easily continue working abroad.

In the last four years, 50 Russian citizens have established companies in Republika Srpska, according to data provided to Radio Free Europe by the Agency for Intermediation, Information and Financial Services (APIF), while this data is not available for the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

These are mainly smaller companies that are registered, among other things, for business and management consulting, computer programming and other IT services, trade and construction.

Among them is the company IREQ, registered this year in Banja Luka for the trade of machinery and equipment, and owned by Aleksandar Gennadievich Zamakhin.

Zamakhin is the former owner of the company FAM Robotics, which was under US sanctions due to its ties to the Russian military and industrial sectors.

The Republika Srpska government supported his proposal to obtain Bosnian citizenship, explaining that he wants to transfer business capacities to that entity and invest there. There is still no decision from the Bosnian Council of Ministers on his request, and he did not respond to a request for an interview.

A company in that entity was also founded by Russian Andrei Beker, who is linked to training Moldovans to cause unrest in that country.

Previously, the Ukrainian website Mirotvorets, which publishes databases of "terrorists, separatists, mercenaries, war criminals and pro-Russian murderers," identified Becker as a member of the Russian paramilitary group of mercenaries Wagner.

Who recommends the candidates?

Since the beginning of 2023, 43 foreigners have been granted Bosnian citizenship based on the country's special benefit mechanism, while the Ministry has received 56 applications during that period.

Citizenship was granted to, among others, businessmen and athletes from Russia, Turkey, Serbia and Croatia.

Recommendations are provided by the relevant ministries, the Bosnian Chamber of Foreign Trade, the entity and Brcko District governments, entity chambers of commerce, the Bosnian Olympic Committee and registered sports federations.

They are part of the documentation on the basis of which the Bosnian Ministry of Civil Affairs prepares the case, and the final decision on citizenship is made by the Bosnian Council of Ministers.

Mirsad Jašarspahić, president of the Chamber of Commerce of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, tells Radio Free Europe that when making recommendations, economic indicators, the work program, existing and announced investments, as well as contacts in the business community are taken into account.

Stressing that he was not informed of specific cases of lack of business results, he said that chambers of commerce do not propose candidates for citizenship, but provide recommendations for people who have already applied.

"We have made recommendations several times when we felt we needed to withdraw investments. There have also been cases when we saw that there were no conditions for this, because there were no indicators for investments and business. The chambers act carefully, but they are not inspectors. They have institutions that should deal with abuses," he said.

Announcing stricter rules

The Bosnian Citizenship Law provides for the regular naturalization of foreigners who, among other things, must have obtained a permanent residence permit in Bosnia for at least three years and meet other requirements.

A special basis is provided for persons who are considered to be of particular benefit to Bosnia, due to their expected contribution to the economy, sports, culture or science.

In these cases, an exception is made to certain conditions of regular naturalization, including at least three years of permanent residence and renunciation of previous citizenship.

The procedure for granting citizenship to persons of special interest is regulated by a 2009 regulation. The Bosnian Ministry of Civil Affairs has prepared a new text that aims to tighten and more precisely regulate this procedure.

The explanation states that a large number of applicants easily receive recommendations from competent bodies, with brief and incomplete explanations, and that among them there are also those who are not persons of particular benefit to Bosnia.

The new regulation narrows the circle of institutions that can nominate individuals for citizenship, and the Bosnian Chamber of Foreign Trade and the entity chambers of commerce are excluded from this process.

According to the Regulation in force since 2009, the Ministry checks whether a person poses a threat to national security and whether he or she has been ordered to be expelled from Bosnia. The new Regulation specifies that it receives data from the Bosnian Service for Foreigners and the Bosnian Intelligence and Security Agency.

The new regulation was discussed at the session of the Bosnian Council of Ministers on July 30, but did not receive the necessary support in the first round of voting.

Warnings from the EU

Granting citizenship to persons of special interest is also permitted by law in Serbia, which is decided by the Government of Serbia. In such cases, it is not necessary to fulfill the requirements of the regular procedure related to previous residence in Serbia and renunciation of existing citizenship.

Since 2022, more than 200 Russian nationals have been granted citizenship under this provision, the European Commission said in a report in late 2025, noting that the profiles of some of them had raised concerns in the EU.

The European Commission has urged Serbia not to grant citizenship through accelerated procedures to citizens of countries that pose a security risk to the EU and to ensure sufficient security checks.

An analysis by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has shown that in the first half of this year, the Serbian government granted four times more citizenship to Russian citizens than to all others. Among them are Russian citizens who are under international sanctions.

Earlier this year, Valery Kazikayev, who has been on the US sanctions list since April 2023, was granted Serbian citizenship due to his business ties to Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov, who has close ties to the Kremlin.

Exceptions from fulfilling all conditions for granting citizenship are also provided for by the laws of Montenegro, when there is an assessment that this is in the interest of the state.

This provision was also the basis for the economic citizenship program, introduced in 2019, which allowed foreigners who invested in the country to obtain a passport.

According to the Montenegrin Investment Agency, 807 citizenships were granted before the program was abolished, mainly to people from Russia and China.

The program was abolished at the end of 2022, after years of warnings from the European Commission about security and migration risks.