Diplomatic scandal

Balkan firebrand and Putin hawara appears in Vienna

Milorad Dodik and his friend Vladimir Putin met in Moscow at the end of February.(Bild: SERGEI BOBYLYOV / AFP / picturedesk.com)

He ignites fires in the Balkans like no other politician: Milorad Dodik. The populist president of the Bosnian republic of Srpska fuels secessionist tendencies, cuddles up to Putin and trivializes the genocide of Srebrenica. On Thursday, he will appear at the state-funded Diplomatic Academy in Vienna. Krone+ asks whether it is necessary to offer such a man a stage. The answer is disconcerting.

He is on the sanctions list of the USA and Great Britain. He stubbornly denies the genocide in Srebrenica. Putin personally honored him with a high medal in Moscow. His primary political goal is the establishment of a separate state for the Bosnian Serbs. On Thursday, Milorad Dodik, President of the Republika Srpska, will be the star guest at a panel event organized by the Bosnian embassy in Vienna.

Where? In the ballroom of the Austrian state-funded Diplomatic Academy, of all places.