While Europe still hopes that Donald Trump might broker peace in Ukraine, the U.S. president’s more recent actions in Bosnia are helping Russia to destabilize the continent.
On Oct. 29, the Trump administration lifted sanctions on Milorad Dodik, the nationalist former leader of Bosnia’s Serb-majority entity, Republika Srpska. This came shortly after the U.S. Treasury Department lifted sanctions on four Dodik allies on Oct. 17.
While Europe still hopes that Donald Trump might broker peace in Ukraine, the U.S. president’s more recent actions in Bosnia are helping Russia to destabilize the continent.
On Oct. 29, the Trump administration lifted sanctions on Milorad Dodik, the nationalist former leader of Bosnia’s Serb-majority entity, Republika Srpska. This came shortly after the U.S. Treasury Department lifted sanctions on four Dodik allies on Oct. 17.
The United States had sanctioned Dodik in 2017 for holding a referendum to formally commemorate the 1992 creation of a separate “Serb Republic” within Bosnia. This move was tantamount to an open embrace of Serbian goals during the Bosnian civil war. It was also a direct violation of the Dayton Peace Agreement, which ended the war and laid out a blueprint for coexistence and power sharing among Bosnia’s three ethnic groups.
Dayton has come close to unraveling numerous times—often as a result of Dodik’s secessionist politics. Now, in lifting sanctions on Dodik, the Trump administration has strengthened the very forces that Russian President Vladimir Putin hopes will unravel the peace forged at Dayton and weaken Europe from within.
Dodik’s alliance with Moscow started soon after his election as Republika Srpska’s prime minister in 2006. The United States had moved on from Bosnia to focus on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. NATO had handed peacekeeping to a smaller and more cautious European Union force a few years earlier. Britain’s Paddy Ashdown, the last international high representative in Bosnia to wield real authority, had announced his departure at the end of 2005. His successors hesitated to use their “Bonn Powers” to remove obstructionist officials and impose laws. In Brussels, the priority shifted from reforming Bosnia to managing migration.
By tolerating Dodik rather than confronting him, Europe gave him room to test the limits of Dayton and push back against international oversight. Putin noticed—and made Dodik, a fellow Orthodox Slav, his man in the Balkans.
Dodik became a regular guest in the Kremlin, where Putin treated him not as a regional politician but as a head of state. Russian state media amplified his speeches, and Orthodox religious figures blessed his nationalist crusades. Dodik welcomed Gazprom, Russia’s state energy giant, along with Russian banks and businesses to move into the Serb entity in Bosnia—lining his pocket while also keeping Bosnian Serbs dependent on Moscow.
Russia also shielded Dodik from accountability. In 2021, it forced the removal of all references to the Office of the High Representative (OHR) from the U.N. Security Council’s resolution renewing the EU peacekeeping mission. The change weakened the OHR’s authority to enforce Dayton. It also effectively decoupled civilian oversight from military enforcement, diminishing the West’s capacity to rein in those threatening Bosnia’s fragile order.
As Russia weakened Bosnia’s international oversight, it also exploited regional politics to deepen its influence. Regionally, Bosnia became a useful tool for Russia to keep Serbia in its orbit and away from the EU.
Serbia began EU accession talks in 2014, a year after neighboring Croatia joined. But so far they’ve gone nowhere. That outcome benefits Putin—and Dodik. The stalled process lets Dodik peddle his “Greater Serbia” narrative. This is the same narrative that sparked Bosnia’s civil war in 1992 and one that Serbia’s president, Aleksandar Vucic, cannot reject without bruising his nationalist credentials. At the same time, it’s one Vucic cannot fully embrace without derailing Serbia’s EU trajectory. That tension allows Moscow to retain leverage in the Balkans.
Another lever Moscow has successfully pulled is Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Budapest has repeatedly blocked or delayed EU sanctions against Dodik, shielding him from the kind of coordinated pressure that might have curbed his secessionist push. Orban’s obstruction has allowed the Kremlin to extend its influence inside the EU itself—undermining unity on Bosnia and exposing Europe’s vulnerability to internal spoilers.
Russia originally started out as Bosnia’s defender. Back in the 1990s, it was a key member of the Contact Group, working alongside Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and the United States to find a resolution to the war. After Dayton was signed, Russia contributed roughly 1,200 troops to NATO’s Implementation Force and later to the Stabilization Force. These forces helped patrol central Bosnia, securing weapons depots and coordinating—sometimes uneasily—with NATO counterparts. It was one of the few genuine moments of post-Cold War cooperation between Moscow and the West.
The Trump administration’s decision to lift sanctions on Dodik fulfills a central aim of Putin’s strategy: fracturing the Western order. Bosnia may not make global headlines anymore, but if Europe ignores it now, it soon will. Its unraveling would destabilize the continent and weaken efforts to push back against Russian aggression. If Europe wants to hold the line in Ukraine, it must also defend the peace in Bosnia—and prove it can still shape stability on its own continent.
Trump’s decision to lift sanctions appears less a matter of Bosnia policy than a result of Dodik’s government hiring a number of Trump associates as lobbyists. These include disgraced Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, whose prison sentence Trump commuted in 2020 and whom he later pardoned in 2025. Blagojevich, the son of Serb immigrants, framed the sanctions against Dodik as political persecution.
For Dodik, the lifting of sanctions is vindication for what he claims was a “grave injustice” toward the Serb people. More importantly, it is a chance to tighten his grip on power. In August, Bosnia’s election commission stripped him of his mandate to govern. Trump’s move rehabilitates him at home, positioning him to reassert his dominance within Republika Srpska’s political apparatus.
Accountability mechanisms are already weakening. This week, Bosnia’s state prosecutor suspended an investigation into Dodik and two other Republika Srpska officials for “attacking the constitutional order”—a move that, whatever its motive, signals how reluctant state institutions have become to challenge him.
Dodik is now likely to push harder to destabilize Bosnia’s institutions. He may work with Bosnian Croat leaders to dismember Dayton by carving out an autonomous Croat entity. Or he may double down directly on his secessionist agenda for Republika Srpska. Either way, the result will be a win for Putin and a loss for Bosnia and the EU.
