Bosnia and Herzegovina

A court in Sarajevo sentenced Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik to a year in prison and banned him from politics for six years for his defiance of an international peace envoy's orders, a ruling Dodik warned would radicalize the situation in the country. 

The Security Council today extended until 2 November 2025 the authorization to establish a European Union-led stabilization force in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as the 15-member Council reviewed the political, security and economic situation in the Western Balkan country.

The local election campaign has begun in Bosnia under tough new regulations imposed by the High Representative, which have already resulted in fines for political parties. 

In the run-up to October's local elections in Bosnia, people have been using a new online platform to report hundreds of instances of hate speech.

[…] Dodik made the comments a day after CIA Director William Burns visited Sarajevo amid what a U.S. government official described to RFE/RL as “worrying secessionist rhetoric and actions.”

The Constitutional Court of Bosnia-Herzegovina on July 24 temporarily suspended an election law passed by the National Assembly of Republika Srpska in April, sparking negative reaction by the international community and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) mission to Bosnia.

A commission set up to recompense relatives of certain Srebrenica genocide victims because Dutch peacekeeping troops failed to protect them has paid out millions of euros in compensation for 611 of the victims’ deaths.

Entrenched divisions in Bosnia and Herzegovina have hampered EU and U.S. efforts to build functional institutions and integrate the country into Western clubs. Dysfunctionality in turn provides fertile ground for meddling by Russia, which appears to have won the battle for the hearts and minds of Bosnian Serbs. 

The leaders of Serbia and the Serb-led entity within Bosnia-Herzegovina called for the unity of ethnic Serbs throughout the region during a rally in Belgrade on June 8, an action certain to anger Western leaders who have condemned any suggestions by entity officials to separate from Bosnia. 

Milorad Dodik, the Russian-friendly president of Bosnia-Herzegovina's Serb-led entity, said the sudden withdrawal from parliament of a controversial "foreign agent" bill was prompted by the need to harmonize it with EU legislation "since Republika Srpska is committed to the European path."