Five days before Bosnia & Herzegovina's October 4 vote, Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly backed Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik's ruling coalition and promised unchanged gas prices for Republika Srpska, Dodik said after meeting the Russian president in Moscow.

Dodik and the entity's Prime Minister Savo Minic, the ruling Alliance of Independent Social Democrats' (SNSD) candidate for the entity's presidency, met Putin at the Kremlin on September 29, securing the Russian president's support ahead of the vote.

"We do not want foreign influence to be decisive. We want a fairer relationship with Serbs and the Serbian people. We want stability for the entire region. I sincerely wish you success," Putin said, according to a statement from the Republika Srpska government. 

Dodik has travelled to Moscow ahead of past elections, and the timing is hard to ignore: the SNSD faces a single joint opposition candidate for the Republika Srpska presidency, and the Kremlin's blessing is aimed squarely at Serb voters.

Gas and defence 

Dodik said the talks covered "political, economic and all other fields" and that Russia remained committed to its partnership with Republika Srpska "without delays or institutional obstacles". "In the Kremlin, with the President of Russia Vladimir Putin, I confirmed that the price of gas for the Republic of Srpska remains the same," he wrote on X on September 29, adding that the two sides had also confirmed cooperation in the gas sector, "including the construction of gas power plants".

The most concrete business item was the Orao Aeronautical Institute in Bijeljina, which repairs military jet engines. "President Putin confirmed cooperation with our company Orao," Minic said after the meeting. Back in Banja Luka on September 30 he said an agreement in principle had been reached to begin work on the Orao project, and that higher quotas for exports from Republika Srpska to Russia had also been discussed. 

Dodik proposed that the governments of Russia and Republika Srpska hold a joint session once a year. On his return he went further, saying the two sides had discussed an advisory team "at the highest level", made up of the presidents and prime ministers, that would review relations annually after a joint government session.

Minic, on his first visit at this level, said the reception showed how Moscow sees the entity. "It was a conversation that shows that we are truly a partner that the Russian Federation perceives on a level that, to be honest, we are not even aware of whether we deserve," he said.

The message for Brussels

The political content of the visit was aimed as much at Brussels and Sarajevo as at Moscow. "We also feel the pressure from Brussels, but our policies remain the same," Dodik said after the meeting. "We do not allow sanctions against Russia. We support military neutrality and do not allow entry into Nato. There will be no introduction of visas for Russian citizens in Bosnia & Herzegovina."

He said the Dayton peace agreement that ended the 1992-95 war had failed and been "destroyed by the Westerners", and that trust within the country "has never been lower". On September 30 he said he had told Putin that the future of Bosnia was "questionable" unless it returned to the original agreement of "three peoples and two entities", and wrote that "Russia is the guarantor of the Dayton Agreement, remains committed to Dayton, and opposes any imposition".

Critics read the visit differently. "Bosnian Serb secessionist Dodik has spent the day bragging about yet another visit to Moscow. Not because of his familiar access to Putin but because he revels in humiliating the American officials who relieved him of US sanctions on the basis of a series of flimsy IOUs," political scientist Jasmin Mujanovic wrote on X. In an earlier post he said there had been "zero moderation in his politics since US sanctions relief last year".

Sanctions lifted, ban still in place

Dodik remains highly influential despite being removed as president of Republika Srpska in 2025 after the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina convicted him of refusing to implement decisions by then high representative Christian Schmidt, and he is banned from holding public office for six years.

He is SNSD leader and has dominated his party's pre-election campaign, overshadowing his party's official candidate, Sinisa Karan. After Dodik's removal, Karan narrowly won the snap presidential election, taking 50.54% after a partial rerun in February. He is now seeking re-election. 

At the same time, Dodik's standing in Washington has been transformed. The US imposed sanctions on the Bosnian politician in 2017 for obstructing the Dayton agreement and widened them in 2022. However, sanctions were lifted in October 2025 along with those on members of his family and associates.

As well as his frequently-voiced admiration for Putin, Dodik has also publicly praised US President Donald Trump, and was photographed in a red MAGA cap celebrating his second election victory. 

An investigation by BIRN and Capital found that Republika Srpska spent about €2.38mn on lobbying in Washington between January 2025 and mid-2026, almost as much as in the previous three years combined. In February a Republika Srpska delegation including Dodik held talks with US lawmakers in Washington.

That rapprochement has not come at the expense of Moscow. Dodik met Putin in Sochi in October 2025, weeks after Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov hosted him in Moscow. In August a bipartisan group of US senators and congressmen urged the Trump administration to reimpose sanctions on Republika Srpska officials.

Russia's remaining levers

Russia's influence in the Western Balkans has shrunk since the invasion of Ukraine, the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) concluded in September, but Moscow maintains levers in Bosnia. Its seat on the UN Security Council gives it a say over the future of the EU-led peacekeeping mission, and Russian media outlets operate in Republika Srpska, which also still depends on Russian gas.

Sarajevo has been sounding the alarm. In a letter to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in June, Foreign Minister Elmedin Konakovic described the country's crisis as "a geopolitical crisis deliberately generated and instrumentalised by Russia" and named Dodik as Moscow's main local ally. He also warned about expanding cooperation with Gazprom and backed the US-supported Southern Interconnection gas pipeline from Croatia as an alternative.

The international architecture meant to contain that rivalry is weaker than at any point since the war, not least because of the growing rift between the US and EU since Trump's return to Washington. Schmidt announced his resignation earlier this year under US pressure, and Bosnia goes to the polls with only an acting high representative, US diplomat Louis Crishock, after Western capitals split over a successor. 

What it means for the EU and Nato paths

Bosnia was granted EU candidate status in 2022 and the green light to open accession talks in 2024, but progress has all but stopped. The country has still not appointed a chief negotiator, and none of the 113 reforms required for accession has been implemented, Deutsche Welle reported, citing an independent analysis of EU reports that showed Bosnia's readiness score falling from 4.14 to 2.91 out of ten in a single year.

Dodik's Moscow pledges cut across that process directly. Candidate countries are expected to align with the EU's common foreign and security policy, including its sanctions on Russia, and the EU has repeatedly said that moves by Republika Srpska against the state's institutions run counter to Bosnia's European path. On Nato, the entity's insistence on military neutrality means the country's membership ambitions remain frozen, since defence and foreign policy decisions require consensus among its three ethnic communities.

Whether Moscow's endorsement helps at home will be tested on October 4. A Metrics Consulting poll conducted on September 14-19 put Minic on 49% against 45% for Branko Blanusa, the joint opposition candidate for the Republika Srpska presidency, Europe Elects reported, well within the range where a strong turnout by either side could decide the result.