U.S. Sources: Russia Secretly Finances Parties in Montenegro, Bosnia’s Dodik

Milorad Dodik(BETAPHOTO/MILOS MISKOV/MO)

Montenegro’s political coalition Democratic Front, currently negotiating an entry into the country’s new government, and a Serb member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Milorad Dodik, received money from Russia as part of Moscow’s effort to expand its influence abroad, a source in the U.S. administration stated.

The Voice of America (VoA) reported on Sept. 14 that the U.S. source refused to reveal the exact amounts Dodik and the Democratic Front had secretly accepted.

“The intelligence community has detected an increase in this activity since 2014. Among the examples was Bosnia, ahead of the 2018 elections, when a Russian oligarch, Konstantin Malofeev, secretly supported Milorad Dodik’s presidential campaign,” the source said, adding that that particular example showed that “Russia had failed to fulfil its promise that it would invest in the economic development of Republika Srpska, but facilitated corruption practices by the ruling party instead, creating unequal conditions for the opposition.”

Another example involved Montenegro and a leading Russian oligarch. “Oleg Deripaska’s associates secured funding for the Democratic Front in 2016, and probably ahead of the 2018 election as well, using inadequate contracts and offshore companies. We could also see that in Albania, in 2017, Russia provided nearly half a million dollars for the Democratic Party, using the companies masking illicit activities,” the source explained.