In the Balkans, and especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina, images from Ukraine of besieged cities, massacres, and mass displacement are re-traumatizing a society that has never been allowed to heal after the wars that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991. Along with the rest of the world, Bosnians have watched the razing of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol with horror. But having lived through the siege of Sarajevo and similar atrocities, Bosnians recognize the velocity and brutality of Russia’s war on Ukraine more viscerally than others—and it puts them on edge.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s assault on Ukraine comes at a time when the Western Balkans have reached a level of tension and uncertainty unseen in decades. Ethnic nationalism threatens to destabilize the region once again, with local political leaders manipulating the public’s worst fears. President Aleksandar Vucic of Serbia has assumed close to complete control over his country’s media and is stoking unrest in Serb-inhabited parts of Kosovo. In Bosnia, his close ally Milorad Dodik, the Serb member of Bosnia’s tripartite state presidency, has advocated for secession of the Serb-controlled parts of the country. A similar alliance exists between the government of Croatia (an EU and NATO member) and Dragan Covic, the nationalist Bosnian Croat leader, who has called for what would amount to further ethnic partitioning of Bosnia. Many Bosnians have responded to growing corruption, the impunity enjoyed by political elites, and economic hardship by leaving the country altogether. The UN estimates that roughly 55,000 people leave Bosnia each year and has warned that if this pattern continues, Bosnia’s population could drop to 1.6 million in 2070 from today’s three million.
