The leader of Bosnia's ethnic Serbs, Milorad Dodik, the target of an arrest warrant over accusations of seeking to secede, announced late Monday that he was in Moscow.
The head of the Serb-dominated Republika Srpska statelet, and Kremlin ally, has for years chipped away at Bosnia's central institutions that have struggled to establish themselves since a devastating 1992-95 war.
Bosnian prosecutors issued an international warrant for the arrest of Dodik on Thursday saying he was wanted for questioning over secessionist actions carried out in Republika Srpska since February.
A national arrest warrant was issued on March 18.
"I have arrived in Moscow," Dodik wrote on the X platform.
"I start every time I stay here with a visit to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier," he added, sharing a video with a message in which he praised President Vladimir Putin, without mentioning whether they had met.
"What he has done to resurrect Russia has been accomplished only by the rare men of history," he added.
Since the end of the 1990s conflict, Bosnia has been split into semi-autonomous halves -- Republika Srpska and a Muslim-Croat federation. Each has its own government and parliament with only weak central institutions binding the country of 3.5 million people together.
Dodik, 66, has several times threatened to take the Serb entity out of Bosnia and barred central police and judicial officials from working there -- an order that was suspended by the constitutional court.
Tensions have risen since a Bosnian court in February found Dodik guilty of refusing to follow the rulings of the international high representative who oversees the Bosnian peace accords. He was ordered jailed for one year and banned from holding public office for six years.
Bosnia's divided politics and fragile post-war institutions have faced increasing uncertainty amid the unfolding political crisis.
Despite the warrants, Dodik has visited Serbia and Israel, where he went to a conference on anti-Semitism that was attended by several European hard right leaders.
In his new message, Dodik said he would return to Moscow on May 9 "to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the victory over fascism, in which the Russian and Serbian peoples suffered the most."
He went on to lambast "the globalist elite, who sought to fragment Russia itself."
Now a supporter of Putin who also vaunts his alliances with China and Hungary's nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Dodik earned international support for taking a stand against wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic who is now serving a life jail term for war crimes.
Since 1998, Dodik has twice been prime minister of the Serb statelet, and has been its president since 2018.
- International warrant -
Any Interpol member state, including Bosnia, can ask the international law enforcement agency to circulate a "red notice" to all members calling for the arrest of a suspect.
But Interpol first carries out checks and as of Monday evening no "red notice" was issued on the Interpol website.
A similar arrest warrant was issued for the speaker of the Republika Srpska assembly, Nenad Stevandic, who returned to Bosnia on March 18 after a visit to Serbia.
Stevanivic similarly defied the warrant by travelling abroad, and was seen in Belgrade on March 15.
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