BELGRADE, April 19. /TASS/. The Republika Srpska (part of Bosnia and Herzegovina) authorities will not impose sanctions against Russia and will not give up cooperation with Moscow, the Serb member of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Presidium, Milorad Dodik, told reporters in Belgrade on Tuesday.

"We will not impose sanctions under any conditions, and we will not join sanctions against Russia, and we say it clearly. We have good cooperation with Russia, I have met with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin several times, I can say, as far as I am concerned personally, that he is one of the most pragmatic and well-meaning people in the world. I have never received any instruction from Russia that I owe anything, this is a fact. And these (West - TASS) will send you 20,000 dollars' worth of aid, and you must do everything at once, this is their logic. I cannot and will not, although many people advise me not to speak about it publicly, refuse to cooperate with Russia at this moment. For me, Putin is a great president of a great nation, a great country. No matter what, the authorities of Republika Srpska will not join sanctions against Russia at any level, that is our position," Dodik stated.

The leader of Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina stressed that he was fully aware of such a position of his country. According to him, Republika Srpska and Serbia are surrounded in the Balkans by NATO countries and resist the influence of the alliance.

"In recent years, the modern world has begun to search for new ways and to abandon the concepts that existed before, against the background of the obvious crisis of the neoliberal concept, which sought salvation in homogenization and found it at the beginning of the Ukrainian conflict. The world is in serious disarray, almost everyone thinks so. We in the Balkans are surrounded by a Western sphere of interest, and both Serbia and Republika Srpska are resisting NATO, which seems to be further strengthened," he said.

In accordance with a constitution proposed in the Dayton Agreement, Bosnia and Herzegovina is made up of two primary entities: the Muslim-Croatian Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (51% of the territory) and Republika Srpska (49% of the territory), as well as of the Brcko District. Three main peoples - the Bosniaks (Slavs converted to Islam), the Serbs (Orthodox) and the Croatians (Catholics) - are represented proportionally in the government. The country is essentially governed through the UN High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina. The functions of the head of state are performed by a collective body, Presidium of Bosnia and Herzegovina.