Night Wolves and praise for Putin mark Milorad Dodik's unconstitutional fête
Thousands of flag-waving ethnic Serbs gathered on the outskirts of the capital Sarajevo Monday to celebrate an unconstitutional holiday associated with Bosnia's brutal war in the 1990s.
A military-style parade was part of a series of festivities that the ethnic group's separatist leader Milorad Dodik also used to profess his allegiance to Russia in what the Serb-majority entity of the Republika Srpska (RS) celebrates as its "National Day".
Some 2,000 Bosnian Serb law enforcement officers marched through Lukavica, a neighbourhood of the RS-administered East Sarajevo, showcasing their rifles, armoured vehicles and police helicopters.
Notably, the local branch of the Night Wolves, a violent Russian motorcycle club that staunchly supports Russian President Vladimir Putin, also took part in the parade.
As bikers passed the dais from which Dodik, other Bosnian Serb officials and Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dačić observed the parade, an announcer on loudspeakers praised their mission to "promote Orthodox Christianity and make the Republika Srpska as mighty and eternal as Mother Russia."
The Night Wolves, funded by the Kremlin, are known to have fought on side of the Moscow-backed forces in Ukraine's Crimea and the Donbas in 2014.
Previously, as part of the festivities — harshly condemned by the United States and the European Union — Dodik announced the award to Putin of his administration's highest medal of honour for his "patriotic concern and love" for the RS.
“Putin is responsible for developing and strengthening cooperation and political and friendly relations between the RS and Russia,” Dodik said at the awards ceremony in the Bosnian Serb administrative centre, Banjaluka.
European Commission spokesman Peter Stano said
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