Don’t ask if there will be a war. It’s already here. It doesn’t smell like gunpowder, but like incense and petroleum. And while the Patriarch kisses the Moscow throne And while Dodik talks about “freedom”, you need to know that this is not freedom. This is captivity. And it’s not a question of what we’ll do when it starts, but whether we’ll even understand that it has already started. And it has started!
Imagine a country where the president of the entity plays the fugitive and the patriarch plays the postman. But not just any postman – he plays the one who carries letters directly from Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. In fact, you don’t have to imagine anything. This is Bosnia and Herzegovina for you in the undertone of the Serbian world, more precisely what remains of it when the Russian Orthodox gunboat docks at the shores of Banja Luka.
Because what did we see in the previous days?
Armed rebellion and a bow to Putin
SIPA allegedly set out to arrest Milorad Dodik. And then, by an unprecedented miracle, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the RS decided not to recognize the institutions of the state in which it is located, and in a fine, military, harmonious manner – surrounded SIPA and said: “You won’t get our Milo!” and it was literally like that with the inevitable mannerism, which I will talk about later.
At that moment, all masks fall.
Because it is no longer a political crisis, legal entanglements, or a media performance. It is an armed rebellion against the state, it is an activated military wing of the Serbian-Russian world, in the middle of Europe, which marches not with tanks, but with processions, armored vehicles and armed cassocks.
And where is Porfirije in all this?
There, right there.
At Putin’s.
You see, while Dodik is spinning laws like children’s marbles, Serbian patriarch Porfirije is going to Moscow to see the holy father of all autocrats. And he doesn’t go to pray for peace. No. He goes to swear his Saint Sava Orthodox loyalty to the Russian Empire, to bow to Cyril, to the Russian court preist who looks more like a mobster than a saint.
And then, in front of the eyes of the world, in the wake of geopolitical chaos, Porfirije utters the key sentences:
“Our position in relation to Kosovo, in relation to the Republika Srpska and Montenegro, I think and feel that it also depends on the position of the Russian state, the Russian Federation, at the global level. My desire and that of the majority in our church is that in future, if there is a new geopolitical division, we will be close to the Russian environment”.
And then his comrade, Metropolitan bishop Irinej Bulović, adds an ending like a muffled chorus:
“To the Russian world.”
To which Porfirije nodded like a child in front of a piece of candy:
“Yes, in the Russian world, in the Orthodox world.”
“Z” for zwastika
Let’s not be naive. It’s not a today’s news, not even yesterday’s.
The symbol “Z”, which was originally a war marker of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, is today a new version of the swastika – not only in Ukraine, but also in the Balkans.
In Novi Sad, Belgrade, Banja Luka, we already see murals with “Z”, crosses and a monastery icon holding a machine gun. It’s not art. It is cultural captivation and appropriation. It is, as Baudrillard would say, the hyperreality of a war that is already here, even though the shots haven’t been heard yet.
And SOC?
SOC is no longer (if it ever was) a religious institution. It is the central ideological agency of the Serbian-Russian world. FSB franchise. Its task is not to save souls, but to reshape consciousness – to create a new, not Orthodox, but a sectarian-nationalist brotherhood that recognizes neither the state, nor the law, nor Europe, nor civilization.
The SOC becomes what the Orthodox Church was in Imperial Russia: the spiritual companion of the autocracy. SOC blesses tanks, helmets and paramilitary troops. And if you thought that it had something to do with faith, you are sorely mistaken. It has to do with imperialism in episcopal guise. It has to do with spiritual conquest.
And when the priest blesses the gun, you know someone’s going to die. The question is – who?
Russian influence in Bosnia and Herzegovina: a model of destabilization
The Kremlin does not send brigades to BiH, but methods, ideology and parareligion. Because they don’t need brigades. It is a perfectly calibrated model of destabilization, precisely tailored for Balkan conditions. It works in five steps:
1. Buy the loyalty of politicians: Milorad Dodik is a textbook example. He was invested in through political connections, business arrangements (gas, energy, telecommunications), and even private security services. He became a Russian player in BiH – not out of ideology, but out of interest.
2. Take over the Church as an ideological shield: Patriarch Porpfirije is a symbol of the symbiosis of faith and imperialism. The SOC functions as an official partner of the Kremlin in creating the “spiritual space of the Russian world”. Russian narratives are not only spread through Sputnik – they are spread from pulpits.
3. Creates a media fog: RTRS, ATV, regime media websites and propaganda centers like IN4S in Montenegro — all of this forms a regional propaganda ring. There, information is not transmitted, but is produced as a weapon. A lie is a method, and deception is a way of acting.
4. Form alternative force structures: SAJ RS, private companies with paramilitary training, people without insignia or with parallel insignia of the two countries are guarding Dodik – all this evokes the Wagner model. Dodik does not trust domestic institutions – that’s why he builds his own. Just like Putin did in Donbass.
5. Paralyze the state from within: every time Dodik causes a crisis, BiH institutions react lukewarmly. Why? Because the mechanism of vetoes, entity blocking and saturated institutions does not allow any decisive reaction. The Kremlin didn’t have to destroy Bosnia and Herzegovina — it just learned how to hit the nail in its head.
Result: BiH is still formally a state, but functionally – an experiment in the Russian hybrid laboratory.
Three BiH scenarios
Black scenario – a metastasis of Russian occupation without tanks:
The RS is becoming more and more an entity in the legal sense that achieves statehood and is essentially less and less a part of the state of BiH. SOC spreads Russian-Orthodox ideology, and BiH institutions are an impotent backdrop. BiH becomes a Russian buffer zone. Until the shot fires. Because the shot is inevitable. Unfortunately, a very likely scenario.
Gray scenario – frozen conflict as a permanent state:
No big bang, but no movement either. Dodik plays ping-pong with SIPA, SOC “calls for peace”, and Russia keeps the entity dependent. The EU and the US send impotent announcements without the tools to solve the situation. BiH is becoming a post-conflict ruin without war.
White scenario – decisive reaction of the West and internal purification:
The only way out – uncompromising secularization, disarmament of paramilitary structures, lustration of Russian satellites and commitment to the EU and NATO. SOC must be a religious, not a political-military institution. Dodik must be behind bars, and his SNSD party disbanded or seriously called to account.
Conclusion: Russia’s presentation in BiH isn’t by tanks, but by incense
Don’t ask if there will be a war. It’s already there. It doesn’t smell of gunpowder, but of incense and petroleum. And while the patriarch kisses the Moscow throne and while Dodik talks about “freedom”, you need to know that it is not freedom. This is captivity.
And it’s not a question of what we’ll do when it starts, but whether we’ll even understand that it has already started. And it has started!
Dragan Bursać. Professor of philosophy, columnist and journalist (BiH).
The articles published in the “Opinions” column reflect the personal opinion of the author and may not coincide with the position of the Center
