Zagreb, 14 February 2025 (Hina/MIA) — Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić said Thursday that the student protests in his country were actually the result of a conspiracy orchestrated from abroad, while Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik expressed unconditional support for Vučić, accusing the students of weakening Serbia.

Dodik and Vučić organized a ceremony in Banja Luka to jointly mark Serbia's Statehood Day, which has also been declared a statehood day in the Bosnian Serb entity of Republika Srpska. This decision was enshrined in the declaration of the so-called All-Serbian Assembly held in June 2024.

The event in Banja Luka was also meant to demonstrate that the declaration was being implemented. For Vučić, the trip to Bosnia and Herzegovina was his first foreign visit since large-scale student protests against his government erupted in Serbia, following the tragedy in Novi Sad, where 15 people were killed when a canopy at the central railway station collapsed.

In his speech at the Banja Luka ceremony, marked by pathos, Vučić claimed that he and his government constantly offered cooperation, did not threaten Bosnia and Herzegovina in any way, and respected its victims, yet received nothing in return.

He said that Serbia only wanted peace and stability but accused Bosnia and Herzegovina of being preoccupied with who would come to power in Serbia. He said the past 100 days had been very difficult for him, even though he was not afraid of possibly losing power. However, he indirectly accused the protesting students of being foreign agents.

"We couldn’t believe how much money was given from abroad to change the government in Serbia," Vučić said, thanking Dodik for "not turning his back on Serbia", unlike other acquaintances, many of whom, he said, have stopped contacting him since the protests began.

Dodik is one of the few politicians openly supporting Vučić while the protests continue in Serbia. On Thursday, he condemned the students, accusing them of weakening Serbia — allegedly with the backing of Great Britain, which he described as Serbia's greatest enemy.

In his speech, Dodik welcomed Vučić to the "state of the Serbian people, Republika Srpska", noting that it was natural for the entity and Serbia to share the same statehood day. He said all Bosnian Serbs supported Vučić because he promised them they would never again face expulsion in "a new Operation Storm."

He said Republika Srpska "must launch its own process of liberation from Bosnia and Herzegovina."

"This people will have to choose the right moment for that," Dodik warned.

Condemnations of Banja Luka gathering

A significant number of Bosniak politicians in Bosnia and Herzegovina condemned the event in Banja Luka, describing it as a provocation.

Bosnian Presidency member Denis Bećirović said Vučić should know that there is no such thing as the statehood of Republika Srpska since the entity had never been a state and never would be.

The SDA Party of Democratic Action called Vučić’s visit to Banja Luka for Serbia’s Statehood Day an act of open aggression and the most blatant attack on Bosnia and Herzegovina's territorial integrity to date.

Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Defense Minister Zukan Helez of the SDP BiH party said Vučić arrived in Banja Luka "like a refugee," as he was no longer welcome in any major city in Serbia, where student protests have been gaining momentum.

"By celebrating an imaginary shared holiday of Serbia and the smaller Bosnia and Herzegovina entity in the country that is his neighbor, Vučić aims to provoke a crisis in Bosnia and the region and divert attention, at least briefly, from the social and political crisis in Serbia," Helez said.

He added that there was no difference between Vučić’s policies and those of Slobodan Milošević, except that "Milošević tried to expand Serbia across the Drina with tanks and aggression, while Vučić does it by continuously provoking crises."