Security minister confirms report, fuelling fears of destabilisation of the Balkans and a resistance to Nato enlargement.
Russian-trained mercenaries are helping to establish a paramilitary unit serving the Serb separatist leader in Bosnia, it was reported in Sarajevo on Friday.
The report on the Žurnal news site, which was confirmed by the Bosnian security minister, comes at a time of mounting western anxiety about Russian efforts to destabilise the Balkans and resist Nato enlargement in the region.
On Tuesday, Milorad Dodik, the hardline leader of the Serb half of Bosnia, staged a military paradein Banja Luka in defiance of a ruling by the country’s constitutional court.
The Žurnal report said that a militia called “Serbian Honour” – which it said had been trained in a Russian-funded “humanitarian centre” in Serbia – was in the process of setting up a paramilitary group to be used against Dodik’s opponents.
It published photographs of the militia on the streets of Banja Luka, the administrative centre of the Republika Srpska, a semi-autonomous entity within Bosnia created by the Dayton peace agreement that ended the 1992-95 war. The pictures show the paramilitaries posing in black sweaters and in combat gear.
The report, including a picture of the award ceremony, says one of the group’s leaders, Bojan Stojković, is a former Serbian paratrooper who had trained in Moscow, and had been awarded a medal by Valeriy Kalyakin, a Russian general.
Dragan Mektić, the Bosnian security minister, said intelligence and security services were aware of the presence and activities of the group.
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