The President of Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko, welcomed the pro-Russian President of the Republika Srpska entity of Bosnia and Hercegovina, Milorad Dodik, in Minsk, as the latter announced plans this week to travel to Moscow where he will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin as part of an extended journey in the region.

“You know what kind of relationship we have with Bosnia and Herzegovina,” President Lukashenko told Milorad Dodik at Monday’s meeting in Minsk.

“We know that sometimes you find it difficult there, but you are fighting courageously. We welcome this,” he said.

Lukashenko further congratulated Dodik for “strongly representing the interests of the Orthodox there, the people who believe in you. We are on your side,” he said.

On February 18, Dodik stated on his official website that he did not come to Belarus “to ask for military aid”.

Instead, he expressed his intention for Belarus “to understand the struggles of Serbs in Republika Srpska”, emphasizing “their fight for sovereignty, status, and freedom”.

“Those who claim that Republika Srpska is isolated probably think that we should be sitting in [US President Joe] Biden’s office and watching him stumble. Let them say what they want,” Dodik said, adding that he had “a busy schedule”.

“After Lukashenko, I will talk with Putin in two or three days, then with the president of Tatarstan [Rustam Minnikhanov],” said Dodik, referring to the autonomous Russian republic.

He said he plans to visit NATO member Montenegro next, where he will meet with the president of the National Assembly, pro-Serbia, pro-Russia politician Andrija Mandić.

He said he will then meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the southern city of Antalya.

Dodik said he also plans a meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Banja Luka in March.

Milorad Dodik, currently the President of the Republika Srpska, has advocated for the idea of ​​separating the Serbian entity of Bosnia from the rest of the country and joining it with Serbia for years.

He is under US and UK sanctions for alleged obstruction of the Dayton Peace Agreement and violating the legitimacy of Bosnia and Hercegovina.

Dodik has maintained close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin despite Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine, appreciating him for protecting the interests of his “Orthodox brothers” in Bosnia.

Dodik met with Putin in Moscow in September 2022 and received the Russian leader’s backing in his upcoming bid for reelection.

The Bosnian War began in 1992 when Serbs, supported by Belgrade, attempted to create an “ethnically pure” region with the aim of joining neighboring Serbia, killing and expelling Croats and Bosniaks, who are predominantly Muslim.

More than 100,000 people were killed and over two million, or more than half of the country’s population, were displaced from their homes before a peace agreement was reached in Dayton, Ohio, at the end of 1995.

Since the Dayton Peace Agreement that ended the Bosnian War, the country has consisted of the Bosniak-Croat federation and the mostly ethnic Serb Republika Srpska under a weak central government.