Russian influence on the media in Bosnia and Herzegovina - a review of the election year

 

As previously conducted research by regional fact-checking platforms indicated, Russia's influence in the media space of Bosnia and Herzegovina has been present for a long time, and it increased after the start of the aggression against Ukraine. However, the influence of Russian official policy in BiH public space is not exclusively linked to the war in Ukraine and the spread of the official narrative in this regard, but is also manifested through Russia's support for political actors in power in the Republika Srpska (RS) with an evident synergy of views on some key issues in the country, such as Euro-Atlantic integration, the status of the High Representative or constitutional reforms.

 

The influence of the Russian media, primarily the Sputnik Serbia agency, was noticeable during the campaign for the General Elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina in October 2022, but also after the elections, and was mainly reflected in the unquestionable support for the candidates of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD).

 

There was no lack of support from Russian officials, whose views, on the other hand, were very affirmatively conveyed in numerous media, especially those based in the Republika Srpska (RS), such as the entity public broadcaster Radio Television of the Republika Srpska (RTRS) and the news agency SRNA.

 

 

Although during the election campaign and in the days after the holding of the General Elections in BiH on October 2, 2022, there was no noticeable spread of misinformation regarding the elections by the Sputnik Serbia agency, the bias in the reporting of this agency and the clear favoring of the candidate of the ruling party in the RS was obvious.

 

A simple search for the term "Dodik" on the official website of the Sputnik Serbia agency, with a time limit of September and October 2022, will yield 163 results. Among the published content were those related to Dodik's September visit to Moscow, as well as content in the context of the election campaign and the advantages of Milorad Dodik in the race for President of the RS, as well as other SNSD candidates for other levels of government.

 

The headlines are dominated by Dodik's views, from the one that Srpska will leave the unconstitutional Bosnia and Herzegovina, Russia's intention to strengthen the execution of its goal, to some who refer to researches that talk about the greatest support for Dodik as president of Republika Srpska. By reviewing these texts, it is clear that the focus is on the stories in which Milorad Dodik's views are expressed that the entry of Bosnia and Herzegovina into the NATO Alliance is impossible and that sanctions against Russia primarily affect the EU, and those that underline his views on the referendum in Donbass, or of the frequent narrative that BiH must get rid of its colonial status.

 

The topics of these texts coincided with the main political narratives of Milorad Dodik and other SNSD officials during the election campaign, which were dominated by a negative attitude towards NATO membership, a positive attitude towards Russia regarding the war in Ukraine or the non-recognition of the high representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Christian Schmidt .

 

On the other hand, by searching the terms "Trivić", which refer to Jelena Trivić from the Party of Democratic Progress (PDP), who was Dodik's opponent for the president of the RS in the last general elections in BiH, in the period September-October 2022, only 38 results are obtained, of which only a few refer to the announcements of the PDP and the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) after the publication of the preliminary results of the General Elections in BiH.

 

Other published content related to Milorad Dodik's comments about Jelena Trivić, columns expressing support for SNSD candidates, or simply agency news about election results or the course of the election campaign.

 

It should also be noted that from mid-November 2022, the Russian state channel Russia Today (RT) also started broadcasting its online program in the Serbian language in Serbia.

 

 

Russia's influence in the media space of Bosnia and Herzegovina is not only noticeable through the publication and spread of disinformation about the war in Ukraine or the biased reporting of political actors in BiH by the agency Sputnik Serbia, but it is also significantly evident in the manner of reporting by the domestic media themselves, primarily those from the RS, which impose on the public the impression of constant Russian support for the ruling policy in this entity.

 

One of the glaring examples of this type of reporting is the visit of Milorad Dodik, as a member of the BiH Presidency, to the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin. They met in Moscow on September 20, 2022, just ten days before the General Election. At that time, the media in RS published numerous contents on the topic of the visit, from reports from the meeting, comments from "analysts", to surveys with citizens. All published texts and contributions attached great importance to this visit and reported on it exclusively in the affirmative.

 

Thus, the state television RTRS announced on its internet portal that Putin wished Dodik success in the elections - this will strengthen our cooperation, indicated that Dodik and Putin will discuss serious economic issues, suggested that Putin knows that Sarajevo is obstructing the construction of the gas pipeline, and that the opposition, with the help of Western services, is trying to downplay the meeting between Dodik and Putin via BN television.

"Russian President Vladimir Putin told the Serbian member of the BiH Presidency Milorad Dodik at a meeting in Moscow that he hopes to strengthen the patriotic forces in the Republika Srpska. He wished Dodik success in the elections, saying that this will strengthen the cooperation between the Republika Srpska and Russia", it was stated in the news published on the RTRS portal after Dodik's meeting with Putin.

 

An official transcript published on the Kremlin's website states that Putin said: "Once again I would like to say what I started with: you have elections coming up and I wish you success." I hope that it will be so, after the results of the vote, that the position of the patriotic forces will be strengthened, which will enable us to further develop fruitful and mutually beneficial cooperation".

 

Milorad Dodik is one of the few politicians who, after the invasion of Ukraine, maintains relations with Vladimir Putin, so earlier in June of last year he attended the International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg, which was boycotted by the majority of world leaders in 2022. In addition to Dodik, representatives of Afghanistan, Belarus, Syria, China, Eritrea and North Korea also appeared at this forum.

 

Although Bosnia and Herzegovina is at the UN session on March 2, 2022. had a clear position and condemned the Russian aggression against Ukraine, there is a clear polarization in the perception and interpretation of this conflict on the domestic political and media scene. Leading actors from the political scene in the RS advocate the neutrality of Bosnia and Herzegovina in relation to this war and the non-introduction of sanctions against Russia, however, the actions of the ruling structures in this entity are contrary to this declarative position.

 

Just a few days after repeating the position that the Republika Srpska should be neutral regarding the introduction of sanctions against Russia, Dodik, the day before the unconstitutional Day of the RS on January 9, awarded the Order of the Republika Srpska to Vladimir Putin. As announced on the official SNSD profile, Putin is responsible for developing and strengthening cooperation and political and friendly relations between the Republika Srpska and Russia.

 

"Thanks to the position of Vladimir Putin and the strength of the Russian Federation, the voice and position of Republika Srpska is heard and respected, and its position is preserved under the onslaught of international interventionism. The order will be presented later, during the first meeting between Dodik and Putin," the publication stated.

 

The awarding of the order to Vladimir Putin in the midst of the war in Ukraine was condemned by numerous representatives of the international community in BiH, such as the European Commission, OHR and the US Embassy in BiH, while on the other hand gratitude was expressed by the diplomatic representation of the Russian Federation in BiH.

 

"We believe that this is a confirmation of the strategic character of our relations, our fraternal relations in all domains, both in the economy and in the spiritual sphere. I think we have very good prospects," said Russian ambassador Igor Kalabuhov for RTRS.

The legitimacy of the High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina was one of the topics that were often advertised in recent months from the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This is how they advertised on this topic through their official Facebook profile from this diplomatic representation in April 2022, when they repeated "the principled position of the Russian Federation that German citizen Christian Schmidt cannot be considered a high representative in BiH without the consent of the UN Security Council ".

 

In their articles, numerous media outlets in the RS call the high representative in BiH "illegitimate" or "fake", and claim that he was "illegally elected". As the Raskrinkavanje portal established in its analysis on the subject, it is a matter of manipulating the fact that he was not appointed by the UN Security Council.

 

In June, the Russian Embassy in Bosnia and Herzegovina also reiterated the same position after Schmidt imposed changes to the Election Law in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and they also spoke after the meeting of the political directors of the Steering Committee of the Council for the Implementation of the Peace Agreement in Bosnia and Herzegovina (PIC) held on December 9, 2022.  

 

"Once again, we note the manipulative behavior of the so-called partners, who ignore Russia's membership in the PIC with unwavering insolence. They didn't even bother to put the infamous footnote about our disagreement with the text of the communiqué. We emphasize that this communique reflects the opinion of only a certain part of the international community. We reserve the right to act on the basis of Russia's role as one of the witnesses to the Dayton Peace Agreement", the statement of the Embassy of the Russian Federation stated.

 

However, apart from the diplomatic representation of Russia, other Russian officials, such as the spokeswoman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of this country, Maria Zakharova, commented on the political processes in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Responding to US President Joe Biden, who stated that Putin must answer for the crimes committed in the Ukrainian city of Bucha, Zakharova, among other things, denied the genocide in Srebrenica committed in July 1995, when she called it a "production".

 

Zakharova spoke even after the European Council decided on December 15, 2022 to give Bosnia and Herzegovina the status of a candidate for EU membership.

 

"In the context of the current situation in the world and the expansionist line of the West, it is obvious that when making this decision, the task of complete geopolitical conquest of the region, the institutionalization of the neo-colonial policy that has been conducted here for years was put in the foreground. It is about taking away the right of the inhabitants of Bosnia and Herzegovina to independently build their inner life and to choose partners according to their own discretion and desire. This is not an exaggeration. The EU has long since turned pre-accession and accession negotiations into an instrument of economic and political coercion. We see the same in other countries of this region. "Focus" countries do not participate in the drafting of Brussels decisions. They are rudely and categorically forced to 'automatically' join all EU foreign policy statements and decisions on sanctions", Zakharova stated in her reaction, which was broadcast hundreds of times in domestic and regional media.

 

As stated in the analysis Media influence of foreign powers in Bosnia and Herzegovina, author Denis Čarkadžić published by FES, in addition to BiH being interesting to certain geopolitical powers, when it comes to the media field within which the influence can really spread, a number of reasons why Bosnia and Herzegovina is an easy target, or much easier than some other, more advanced societies.

 

First of all, it is a worrying percentage of the illiterate population in BiH, where the 2013 census showed that it is 2.82% of the total number. This percentage is the highest compared to the other countries of the Western Balkans, and illiteracy in BiH is 14 times higher than the UNESCO average. 9.6% have a high school diploma, 51.1% have a secondary school diploma, and only 21.4% of the population have completed primary school, according to the analysis, referring to data from the BiH Statistics Agency from June 2016. In addition, media (il)literacy is a special challenge in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

 

For all these reasons, it is to be expected that the media influence of foreign powers in Bosnia and Herzegovina will further increase in the coming period. As BiH fact-checking portal Raskrinkavanje wrote in mid-2022, the Webtribune portal in its articles often transmits information from the Chinese blog Baijahao, on which anyone can publish content, presenting the blog as a credible media source.

 

As stated in the analysis of the Debunking, it is, in fact, a blog platform of the technology company Baidu, on which anyone can create posts, and it is not a "list", "portal" or "Chinese publication" that has editorially formatted content. During 2021, this platform counted over four million publisher orders, according to data published by the Chinese marketing agency Gentleman.