Putin's Influence in the Balkans: Gas Pipeline through RS bypassing BiH government?

American magazine Foreign Affairs published an analysis last week on Russia's influence in the Western Balkans, reports Patria News Agency.

According to it, the Kremlin's primary goal in the region is to keep Balkan countries out of Western institutions, NATO, and the EU, and secondarily to control energy sources in the region, so that Balkan countries become completely dependent on Russia. 

In 2016, Russia completed a $75 million section of a gas pipeline in Macedonia, covering the entire cost, while in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Russia plans to bypass the central government and build a gas pipeline in the predominantly Serb entity of Republika Srpska, writes Foreign Affairs.

When it comes to Bosnia, Putin's financial support for Republika Srpska encourages President Milorad Dodik in his advocacy for secession, which would represent a dangerous precedent for redrawing the map of Southeastern Europe and reviving Balkan conflicts, assesses Foreign Affairs.

The magazine adds that Zagreb's behavior is important for Bosnia because Bosnian Croats, reacting to the demands of Bosnian Serbs, are seeking their own autonomous entity and expect support from Zagreb, which Plenković's government does not provide. This policy of non-interference also keeps Serbia at a distance from BiH, i.e., RS. 

Foreign Affairs should know that Croats have been pushing for their own entity for two decades and have tried to achieve it through crime, ethnic cleansing, and concentration camps. The claim that Plenković's Government is not interfering in BiH is not true, as both he and his ministers encourage the division of the country, enter Bosnia and Herzegovina unannounced, and then accuse the majority Bosniaks of being endangered. Croatian President Kolinda Grabar Kitarović is particularly aggressive in her statements against BiH.     

According to the American magazine, "Croatia pursues an anti-Russian foreign policy in the region with the aim of separating from the Kremlin." The question is what kind of ties Croatia had with Russia that it now needs to "separate" from the Kremlin.  

Foreign Affairs states that Andrej Plenković's Government did not succumb to Russian business proposals by rejecting the offer from Russian banks to exchange Agrokor's debt for a stake in the company's ownership, as it is aware that handing over control of Croatia's largest company to Russians would endanger regional security.

It is contradictory that the former HDZ government took out a loan from Russian Sberbank, and this HDZ government simply refuses to treat that loan in a financially correct manner.

Foreign Affairs concludes that Croatia is an example showing that Western support for strong political systems, rather than individuals, is the best guarantee of stability in the Balkans.