U.S. Official: Dodik Growing More Isolated, Harder for Him to Obtain Funding

U.S. Congress (Wikimedia)

The U.S. assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia, James O’Brien, stated during a hearing before the U.S. Senate’s sub-committee for European issues that Republika Srpska (RS) President was becoming more and more isolated and that it was increasingly difficult for him to obtain funding.

“He (Dodik) has no political support. When he speaks of secession, Croatia openly says that it would not recognize it. Serbia also silently says – no, we are not changing the borders. We are sticking to the original Dayton. And you have seen that President (of Serbia Aleksandar) Vucic started saying such things publicly. Therefore, Dodik is alone,” O’Brien said, as conveyed by the media in Bosnia and Herzegovina on July 31.

He assessed that U.S. sanctions were creating financial problems for Dodik and that “he is getting less funding, having admitted so himself.” “He is trying to borrow from China, Russia, Hungary and occasionally from Serbia. And that is growing more difficult,” said O’Brien.

In his words, Dodik used to be able to persuade the favored banks in RS to manage state bonds, but complained on July 30 that this was no longer possible due to U.S. sanctions.