The President of Republika Srpska (RS) Milorad Dodik stated today that he did not seek or receive Russian citizenship.
"I neither applied for citizenship of the Russian Federation, nor did I receive it," Dodik told Sputnik after some Sarajevo media reported that Sputnik first published and then deleted the news that Dodik had received Russian citizenship and that he had been granted residence in that country.
Sputnik Serbia assessed on its portal that the news is "a gross forgery that should come under attack from judicial authorities", and that its aim is to "broadcast false information that Milorad Dodik has fled to Moscow, and that it is being published by none other than the most influential Russian media outlet in the Balkans".
They stated that "along with the news from the phantom portal Faktor.ba, which was soon reported by Sarajevo portals without verification, an evidently edited (and rather amateurish) screenshot of the allegedly removed page appeared, but with a shortened and changed link to the aforementioned 'text'."
"A similar text was neither released on the Sputnik website, nor was it deleted. Neither does Dodik intend to obtain Russian citizenship, nor is there any official or unofficial story about it. Everything is completely fabricated with obvious mundane political intentions," Sputnik assessed.
They reiterated that this is a "gross forgery, targeting Dodik, who is currently visiting Moscow, as well as Sputnik Serbia, until recently the only Russian media outlet in the Balkans, present in the media space of the region for ten years."
"The Republika Srpska, but also the Russian Federation, are the targets of such untruths," Sputnik said.
Dodik, for whom the Court of BiH issued a central arrest warrant and requested Interpol to issue an international arrest warrant, because he did not respond to a summons for questioning at the BiH Prosecutor's Office as a suspect in "an attack on the constitutional order", announced last night that he had arrived in Moscow.
Dmitry Peskov, the spokesman for the Russian president, told reporters today that the Kremlin will inform if Russian President Vladimir Putin and Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik meet.
"If the meeting takes place, we will inform you," Peskov said, responding to journalists' questions about whether there will be a working meeting between Putin and Dodik, Sarajevo media reported.
Bonus video:
