11.01.2023.

Čović's and Dodik's "conciliation" plan agreed with Kalabuh's: the Russians, through the new Council of Ministers, want to install their own Rista Zarić in OSA, and with the dismissal of Slobodan Ujić, they intend to take control of the Service for Foreig

Russian Ambassador Igor Kalabuhov asked Milorad Dodik and Dragan Čović to temporarily reconcile, so that, with the establishment of a new convocation of the BiH Council of Ministers, they would take control of the Service for Affairs with Foreigners of BiH and all operations of the Intelligence and Security Agency of BiH, Istraga.ba learns from more domestic and international sources. Apart from this, Čović intends to take control of the electric power sector and dedicated industry in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina through the federal institutions.
 
Western security agencies were also informed about this plan, and everything was revealed on December 19 last year in the premises of the HDZ BiH, after BiH Presidency member Željko Komšić stated that he would make a statement about Borjana Krišto when she, as a candidate for the mandate, came to the BiH Presidency.
"Immediately after Komšić's statement, Dragan Čović called Milorad Dodik on the phone and asked him to urgently call the president of the SDP BiH, Nermin Nikšić, and to ask him as an ultimatum that the leaders of the eight put pressure on Denis Bećirović (Bosniak member of the Presidency of BiH, o.a. ) that together with Željka Cvijanović (a member of the BiH Presidency from among the Serbian people), vote for Borjana Krišta, without conditions", states one of the sources of the Investigation from the HNS (Croatian National Parliament).
 
After the conversation with Dodik, Čović informed his associates that the SNSD president is also "angry with Bećirović, because he is making the voting of the northern gas interconnection conditional on the law on gas at the level of BiH". Čović told his collaborators that Nikšić must discipline Denis Bećirović, because their entire project will fail.
 
"On 19 December 2022, Dragan Čović said at a meeting in the premises of the HDZ of Bosnia and Herzegovina that Milorad Dodik told him that he too was in a situation where he must not publicly react to Bećirović's demands about gas, and that the Russians insisted on silence, because Kalabuhov called on him to reconcile and not react until the BiH Council of Ministers is formed," reveals the interlocutor of the Investigation.
 
The Russian ambassador asked for this because he expects that with the establishment of the new BiH Council of Ministers, pro-Russian cadres from Republika Srpska will finally take control of the Service for Affairs with Foreigners of BiH and within the Intelligence and Security Agency. Namely, although SNSD's Zoran Tegeltija is the head of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina, during his mandate he did not manage to replace the security sector personnel previously appointed by the opposition from Republika Srpska. Thus, SDS cadre Slobodan Ujić remained at the head of the Service for Affairs with Foreigners of Bosnia and Herzegovina, while PDP cadre Trifko Buha is still performing the function of deputy director of OSA.
 
In the past years, the OSA of BiH and the Service for Affairs with Foreigners of BiH banned the entry into BiH of several Russian and Serbian citizens who were declared to be dangerous to the national security of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This is why in March of last year, after the Serbian professor Miloš Ković, lawyer Goran Petronijević and former head of the Serbian Gendarmerie Bratislav Dikić were banned from entering BiH, SNSD leader Milorad Dodik openly launched an attack on OSA and the Service for Affairs with foreigners of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
 
"When Professor Miloš Ković was returned, we asked ourselves how it is done, unfortunately it is done by the Service for Affairs with Foreigners, whose director is a Serb and who has some close ties with Mirko Šarović, I mean some godfather, and that he decides about it . This should never be the right of one individual, regardless of the function they perform. The system that exists in BiH allows exactly such voluntarism that individuals can flatter themselves in such a way. These are primarily the demands of the Muslims in Sarajevo who are looking for it. I think that Professor Ković and Dikić are not a threat to security," said Milorad Dodik at the time, stating that there was no need for this.
 
The Service for Affairs with Foreigners, Slobodan Ujić explained at the time, performs only the technical part. When OSA declares someone a person who threatens the national security of BiH, then the Service for Foreigners enters everything into the system that is later used by the Border Police of BiH.
We would like to remind you that OSA and the Foreign Affairs Service prevented Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeev, who organized terrorist operations in Crimea in 2014 on behalf of Russian President Vladimir Putin, from entering Bosnia and Herzegovina. Malofeev also financed Milorad Dodik's campaign, which was also announced by US State Department officials.
 
"The named Konstantin Malofeev represents a threat to BiH, public order, public order and peace, public health of BiH or international relations", it is written in the document on the basis of which this Russian oligarch was banned from entering BiH, which is why he had to return to Bosnia and Herzegovina by private plane Moscow, despite interventions from the Embassy of the Russian Federation.
 
In addition to Malofeev, OSA and the Service for Foreigners banned entry into BiH to the leader of the Night Wolves, Aleksandr Sergejevich Zaldostanov, nicknamed the Surgeon, then the officer of the Russian military intelligence service GRU, Vladislav Vitalyevich Filippov, the writer Yevgeniy Nikolaevich Prilepin, nicknamed Zahar, the lawyer of Radovan Karadzic, and the Russian activist Goran Petronijević, a pro-Russian politician from Serbia Mlađan Đorđević, the former head of the Serbian Gendarmerie accused of a coup d'état in Montenegro, Bratislav Dikić, and several members of the Wagner Group who were active in Serbia.
 
In order to prevent further bans on the entry of Russian spies into Bosnia and Herzegovina, Milorad Dodik and Dragan Čović must take control of OSA and the Service for Affairs with Foreigners. Namely, Milorad Dodik intends to appoint Rista Zarić, who has been an important collaborator of pro-Russian structures in BiH in recent years, to the position of deputy director of OSA with the establishment of the new BiH Council of Ministers. According to the information of the Investigation, at the end of last year in East Sarajevo, Zarić also had meetings with the staff of Narod i Pravda, the party to which, in the distribution of positions, the position of OSA director should go - As a condition for the appointment of NiP's staff to the head of OSA- e, Dodik and SNSD appointed Rista Zarić to the position of deputy director of that agency.
"The Deputy General Director of the Agency manages the operational activities of the Agency's organizational units under the supervision of the General Director", is stated in Article 92 of the Law on OSA.
Zarić was previously the deputy director of OSA, and his former driver, Dragan Savić, was reported to have taken confidential documents from this state agency that related to operations directed against Russian intelligence. In particular, Zarić's driver was reported to the Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina for having presented documents about the secret operation "Ušće", during which Serbian intelligence agents were exposed who took photos of the US Embassy and dedicated industry facilities in Sarajevo.
By replacing PDP's Trifko Buha and appointing Rista Zarić, the SNSD and the Russian Federation would gain full control over the Intelligence and Security Agency of Bosnia and Herzegovina. At the same time, the new convocation of the BiH Council of Ministers would also replace the SDS director of the Service for Affairs with Foreigners, which would also belong to the SNSD.