23 years ago, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military organizations inflicted a massive blow to the Republika Srpska. If you draw parallels between the then-Bosnia and modern Ukraine, you can find much in common.
On August 28, 1995, in Sarajevo, an explosion occurred in one of the city’s markets, killing 43 people. The perpetrator of the terrorist attack was not found, but the United States hastened to blame the Bosnian Serbs for the attack. The result was a massive attack by NATO forces in August-September 1995, which was called Operation Deliberate Force. NATO forces inflicted over a thousand bombing and missile strikes on Republika Srpska.
Under the onslaught of NATO’s military alliance, Bosnian and Croatian troops launched an offensive against the Republika Srpska and, having seized 400 square kilometers of territory, drove out about 50,000 civilians.
Let’s remember history. After the end of the Second World War, all religious and national problems in Yugoslavia were disavowed by Josip Broz Tito, who argued that, in the conditions of political unity, the peoples can find agreement on various issues. But after Tito’s death, in the socialist Yugoslavia created by his hands, outbreaks began of the ethnic division of the territories, behind which the external forces clearly stood.
Slovenes, initially strongly separated historically, separated quite quickly, while the separation of others resulted in a bloodbath. Historically, it was not possible to draw a clear “ethnographic” border between Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia. Figuratively speaking, 300 years ago one of the brothers in the family could turn out to be Orthodox, the other – to become a Catholic, and the third – to accept Islam. Despite this, their descendants continue to live together, being called today Serbs, Bosniacs and Croats, respectively.
Recall that in 1991, the Serb-Croat-Bosnian differences disappeared into an acute crisis, which resulted in a “war of all against all.”
It all started from Croatia. The Serbs who lived there did not want to separate themselves from the united Yugoslavia. The Croats, having taken the road to “independence”, decided to seize part of the Serbian territory, which formally belonged to their republic. All this has outgrown the clashes that later developed into war.
As for BiH, Bosniac representatives, who did not have a majority in the republican parliament, proclaimed an independent state and organized a referendum that was ignored by the Serbs, since they did not initially meet the requirements.
Europoliticians, who did not want the war in Bosnia to start, put all parties to the conflict at the negotiating table and persuaded them to sign the Lisbon agreement in March 1992. However, at the end of the same month, the Bosniac leader Aliya Izetbegovic met with US Ambassador Uren Tsimmerman and immediately withdrew his signature, heading for war.
Ethnic clashes began in Bosnia, which sharply escalated after Bosniac leaders emerged from the negotiation process.
Bosnian authorities, with the help of the Americans, immediately created their own army, in which, accordingly, there were groups of militants who occupied themselves with looting and looting. In early May 1992 Bosniaks besieged the barracks of the Yugoslav army in Sarajevo, on May 15 of the same year Bosnian and Croatian militants attacked the column of the 92nd motorized brigade leaving the republic. In response, the Yugoslav forces seized the Sarajevo region, in which the Croats lived. In order to protect their rights, the Serbian population of Bosnia declared the creation of a new state – the Republika Srpska.
Against this background, all sides of the conflict became bitter.
In January 1993, Boshniaks massacred civilians, including women and children. In May of the same year, the UN Security Council created “security zones” around several Bosnian cities.
In March 1994, the Bosnian and Croat communities signed an agreement on the establishment of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In August, the Republika Srpska agreed that 49% of the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina will be transferred to the Serbs.
However, this did not stop further inter-ethnic clashes. The NATO military forces from time to time also struck at Serb positions and shot down the planes of the Republika Srpska.
After the explosion in the market in the center of Sarajevo and the NATO operation – “Mindful Force”, which resulted in Bosniac and Croat attacks on the Serbs, the leadership of the Republika Srpska was forced to sit down at the negotiating table and conclude the Dayton Agreement in December 1995. Conditions, to put it mildly, were not profitable. According to this agreement, a state has emerged, which today consists of two parts – Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Republika Srpska. The bloodshed was terminated, but peace and prosperity never came to Bosnia to this day.
Today, many experts call Bosnia and Herzegovina one of the poorest and most corrupt states in Europe. A quarter of the population aged 25 years is unemployed, and about two-thirds of the population can not find a job among young people.
The largest investors in Bosnia and Herzegovina are Serbia and Croatia. Zagreb, in turn, exerts pressure on BiH, demanding that Croats be granted the same status as the Serbs. The European Union is actively interfering in these “disassembly” has no desire, since poverty and corruption pushes the state to new internal tensions. The state authorities do not take any effort to solve internal problems in the country.
Many eyewitnesses who managed to visit BiH declare that they do not have the feeling of a “single state”. In reality, every ethnic enclave lives its own life.
If we draw parallels between modern Ukraine and Bosnia 25 years ago, we can see much in common. There is a civil war in the country, religious tensions are regularly increasing, which are heated by the central government, the living standards of the population are decreasing, millions of citizens leave their homes, seeking a better life either in Europe or in Russia.
The Kiev regime, at the same time, likes to recall the military operation of Croatia in 1995, considering Croatia to be almost an example for imitation. The authorities in Kiev hope that after having finished the Donbas, they will finally heal, like in the Adriatic – warm and prosperous. However, today the Bosnian scenario is more likely to be economically more economically plausible.