SLOBODNA EVROPA WRITES: Republika Srpska is fiercely lobbying in America for independence!

Republika Srpska paid four million dollars from its budget to lobbyists in Washington to advocate for the entity’s independence from Bosnia and Herzegovina, as shown by the database of the U.S. Department of Justice analyzed by Radio Free Europe (RFE).

The latest contract with the Israeli-Canadian firm Dickens & Madson is only part of a years-long lobbying campaign by the authorities of Republika Srpska (RS) in the United States, RFE writes.

At least $8.3 million has been allocated for it since 2015, while the goals included, among other things, lifting U.S. sanctions against former entity president and prime minister Milorad Dodik and challenging the legitimacy of High Representative Christian Schmidt.

The U.S. lifted sanctions against Dodik and his associates in 2025, while Schmidt resigned in May this year.

The authorities of this entity allocated an additional 54.9 million marks (around 28 million euros) for lobbying activities in the 2025 budget rebalancing, RFE reports.

The money for lobbying was approved by the ruling majority in the National Assembly of Republika Srpska, led by Dodik’s Alliance of Independent Social Democrats.

At the same time, representatives of the state authorities in BiH have, since the end of the war in 1995, engaged a similar firm only once, last year, for ten months to advocate for the protection of the state’s integrity.

Former Israeli military intelligence officer Ari Ben-Menashe, founder of Dickens & Madson, refused to answer RFE’s questions about whether the independence of Republika Srpska remains the goal of their engagement and how they plan to advocate for such a policy before American and international institutions.

“We cannot answer that because of concerns about the confidentiality of the contract,” Ben-Menashe said in a written response to RFE.

Neither the Government of Republika Srpska, which signed a contract with Ben-Menashe in September 2025, nor the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of BiH, which briefly engaged lobbyists at the beginning of 2025 to advocate for the territorial integrity of BiH and interests contrary to those advocated by the authorities of the RS entity, responded to the questions.

Entities in BiH, according to the Constitution and laws of BiH, have no right to secede, including the right to hold a referendum on the issue, although the authorities of RS have announced such a possibility in the past.

On the other hand, on the 30th anniversary of the Dayton Peace Agreement, the U.S. reiterated its support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of BiH and that it remains firmly committed to supporting the stability and security of BiH and the Western Balkans.

Who is lobbying for an independent Republika Srpska?

Over the past ten years, the Government of the Republika Srpska entity has hired a total of 15 American lobbying and law firms, including its own representative office registered for the same activities.

By the end of 2025, it had paid them at least $8.3 million, according to the publicly available FARA (Foreign Agents Registration Act) database of the U.S. Department of Justice.

All lobbying and law firms are connected to Republican political circles in Washington.

The latest contract with the firm Dickens & Madson, worth four million dollars and signed on September 6, 2025, stands out because it clearly specifies that “the independence of Republika Srpska from Bosnia and Herzegovina is the ultimate goal.”