Overview

• Meeting in Sochi on the sidelines of the Valdai forum, Vladimir Putin and Milorad Dodik affirmed what both described as stable, strategic relations and an active dialogue.
• Dodik said Republika Srpska is drafting a position report on Bosnia and Herzegovina for Russia to present during this month’s U.N. Security Council agenda.
• He stated that further coordination on the Council discussion will include a conversation with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
• Dodik claimed RS representatives blocked at least four attempts to send products from Bosnian defense firms toward Ukraine, while not ruling out possible clandestine transfers.
• Putin called the situation in RS difficult, and Dodik later urged him not to leave RS to EU bureaucrats as the entity heads toward a referendum and early elections.