Scapegoat country: The West wants to send migrants to Bosnia and Herzegovina
Western countries are planning to send Muslim migrants to Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), President of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik told Izvestia. Since 2015, the "open door" policy has provoked an acute migration crisis in Europe, and now European officials want to solve this problem at the expense of a small country. Experts warn that if BiH is overwhelmed by a new wave of Muslim migrants, this could undermine the country's security. Milorad Dodik, who refused to impose sanctions against the Russian Federation, faced prosecution, opposed this idea. About how the migration crisis continues to destroy European countries 10 years after it began, see the Izvestia article.
Why do they want to send migrants to BiH
Western countries are planning to send Muslim migrants to Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), President of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik told Izvestia. European politicians, realizing the gravity of the migration crisis, decided to shift the problem to a small republic.
— There are serious problems with migrants in Western Europe right now, some of whom are becoming delinquents [offenders]. In the West, they actively promote the thesis of fighting for human rights, and therefore they do not want to return these migrants to the countries from which they came, believing that local authorities can imprison them or even eliminate them. Therefore, now they are looking for a place to return these migrants, and they want Bosnia and Herzegovina to become such a place," the politician said.
President of the Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik
The State of Bosnia and Herzegovina consists of two main parts: the Republika Srpska, in which Orthodox Serbs live, and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where Muslim Bosniaks (more than half of the population) and Catholic Croats live. The territory of the former is divided into two parts (northern and eastern) by the Brcko district, which is considered self-governing and at the same time part of the republic and the federation. BiH is headed by a collective body, which includes three presidents — from Republika Srpska, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Brčko district.
At the same time, neither the Orthodox population of BiH nor Dodik himself are eager to accept Muslim migrants, fearing that this will lead the country into crisis.
"I am against this, and that is why they are fighting me so hard, including through court decisions," Milorad Dodik said.
If such statements by a politician about the intentions of the West are not an exaggeration, then another wave of Muslim migrants could undermine the national security of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ekaterina Entina, director of the HSE Center for Mediterranean Studies, told Izvestia. The fact is that there are a large number of Islamist cells on the territory of BiH, primarily in the Muslim-Croatian Federation, which are called "wrong zones". Neither the police forces nor the civil administration have access to these places.
"The main danger is that if there is another wave of poorly controlled migration flows, especially from the Middle East and North Africa, the threat from the "wrong zones" may increase significantly, which as a result will undermine the security of Bosnia and Herzegovina," the expert notes.
By the way, the history of unfriendly relations between Republika Srpska and the West goes back to the Yugoslav wars of the late 20th century, when the South Slavic people experienced all the horrors of NATO bombing. Later, Dodik repeatedly talked about how the West offered the Serbs to forget about this aggression, providing them with loans for reconstruction. Nevertheless, relations between Republika Srpska and Western countries are still tense.
After the start of the SVO, Milorad Dodik supported Russia, refusing to impose sanctions against it. In September 2025, he stated that the special operation should be successful, and in a conversation with Izvestia, he noted that the republic's leadership would stop attempts by Bosniak Muslims to send weapons to Ukraine.
— We have not given consent for Bosnia and Herzegovina to join NATO and will not give it. Similarly, we did not agree to the imposition of sanctions against the Russian Federation and did not allow Bosnian Muslims, who have a defense industry, to export weapons and ammunition that could end up in Ukraine. We have prevented this and will continue to prevent it," he said.
It is not surprising that, being an inconvenient politician for the West, Dodik faced serious pressure, which resulted in a court sentence with a prison sentence in absentia. In February of this year, the BiH court in Sarajevo accused the politician of ignoring the decisions of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and the high representative of the international community, Christian Schmidt, who performs the functions of an external administrator in the country. This is the first such verdict in the republic on this charge. Dodik was sentenced to one year in prison and banned from politics for six years.
The leader of Republika Srpska called the charges illegal, refusing to resign as president. The official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, said at the same time that such a verdict was unjustified and could have no legal consequences. After the appeals chamber of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina upheld the verdict in August, Dodik threatened to declare the independence of Republika Srpska if pressure continued to be exerted on it.
At the same time, the Central Election Commission of Bosnia and Herzegovina scheduled early presidential elections for Republika Srpska on November 23, 2025. In response, Dodik stated that he and members of his ruling party, the Union of Independent Social Democrats, would not participate in them. "No one is demanding elections, and this is imposed by political Sarajevo," the politician explained.
About the migration crisis in Europe
It is not surprising that EU countries want to use Bosnia and Herzegovina as a place to expel migrants. The fact is that the migration crisis that began in 2014-2015 has become one of the most painful problems in the region today. As a result of the events of the "Arab Spring" and the wars in Syria and Libya, EU countries were overwhelmed by millions of migrants. The famous phrase "We will cope", which was uttered by the then German Chancellor Angela Merkel, literally opened the gates of European civilization in front of them.
If in 2000-2010 20-25 thousand people came to Europe illegally per year, then in 2014, according to the International Organization for Migration, 900 thousand arrived in the EU, in 2015 - 1,048 million.
It seems that at that moment the leadership of Germany and other European countries underestimated the danger of a future threat. "Anna or Alyona, Max or Mohammed — everyone should have equal opportunities in education and work," the German chancellor loudly exclaimed at the time. In 2021, the name Mohammed became the most popular among the male population of the Belgian capital of Brussels. According to the country's Statbel agency, 13.5 thousand people officially lived in the city with this name, which is twice as many as men with the name Jean.
According to forecasts by Pew Research, the number of Muslims in Europe may grow to 75.6 million by 2050, compared with about 25.8 million in 2016. In Sweden, the proportion of the Muslim population may increase to 30.6% (4.5 million), in Germany — to 19.7% (17.5 million), in France — to 18% (13.2 million), and in the UK — to 17.2% (13.5 million).
Milorad Dodik drew attention to similar trends in an interview with Izvestia.
— Today, migrants from the Islamic world have destroyed the social structure of society in a number of countries — Germany, France, Austria. For example, in Austria this year, more than 40% of children in the first grades of schools in Vienna are of Muslim origin," he said.
The main negative consequence of the migration crisis has been a rapid increase in crime. For example, the number of crimes committed by migrants in Germany increased by 26.8% in 2023 compared to 2022. Rape, harassment, and theft are among the most common. There is no need to go far for examples: in early October, two 15-year-old Syrians attacked a 19-year-old Czech man with a knife at the Dresden main railway station, after which they robbed and raped him. They were soon detained by the German police.
Open terrorism cannot be ignored either. In particular, in early 2024, a native of Saudi Arabia drove into a crowd of people at a Christmas market in Magdeburg. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban later called the attack a consequence of the migration crisis.
—We conducted a study, and in general, statistics for many countries confirm that in areas with a higher concentration of migrants, socio-economic indicators are often worse, as well as the crime rate is higher," Egor Sergeev, a senior researcher at the MGIMO Institute of International Studies, told Izvestia.
At the same time, the EU's population is growing largely due to migration, he notes. In particular, in Italy, Germany and Portugal, the population has grown over the past 20 years due to newcomers, although, according to all forecasts, it should have decreased without them. According to the expert, a certain number of migrants have "normal qualifications (average and higher), as well as an acceptable level of education." Despite this, all the negative consequences of the crisis outweigh this factor. Suffice it to recall that in 2015 at least €10 billion was spent from the German budget on refugees, and today the EU leadership continues to allocate billions of euros from the pocket of Europeans to solve the problem.
Moreover, immigrants from the migrant community are gradually beginning to infiltrate the political elite of Europe. The most striking example is Pakistani Sadiq Khan, who in 2016 became the first Muslim to be elected mayor of London. Under his leadership, the city authorities placed special emphasis on multiculturalism and a friendly attitude towards visitors, organizing official celebrations on the occasion of Muslim holidays, in particular, Ramadan. For this, Khan was criticized by Donald Trump, who said that London was going to "switch to Sharia law."
Such negative factors, as well as the general erosion of European culture from within, are gradually leading to an increase in the popularity of right-wing political forces in Europe. Thus, the Alternative for Germany (AfD), with the slogan of combating illegal migration, became the leader among all parties in the country in August 2025: its rating rose to 26%. In France, the "National Union" led by Marine Le Pen, who was expected to win the presidential election in 2027, achieved unprecedented support. However, the criminal case against her and four years of imprisonment deprived her of this opportunity. On this wave of popularity, the prime ministers of Hungary and Slovakia, Viktor Orban and Robert Fico, are already in power today.
It seems that other politicians in Europe have understood this as well. The most striking example of a reversal in migration policy is the permission of the German police to refuse entry to migrants who seek asylum. As stated by the Minister of the Interior of Germany Alexander Dobrindt, he withdraws the instruction from 2015, according to which visitors were forbidden to refuse asylum.
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