If it happens, two individuals known to the authorities in the Balkans, Alexander Borodai and Yevgeny (Zakhar) Prilepin, could become members of the State Duma, Russia’s parliament.

Alexander Borodai is one of the leaders of the Union of Donbas Volunteers, whose envoys visited Visegrad in Bosnia and Herzegovina to mark Republika Srpska’s Day of the Russian Volunteers, which honours Russians who came to fight in the Bosnian war. He also visited Serbia as a member of a delegation that included representatives of Cossack organisations.

It was Borodai who offered strong support for the establishment of the Balkan Cossack Army, appointing its chief ‘ataman’ (leader) Viktor Zaplatin, a Russian volunteer fighter in the 1992-95 Bosnian war, as the accredited representative of the Union of Donbas Volunteers in the Balkans.

Yevgeny Prilepin, who fought in Russia’s first Chechen war of the 1990s, is a journalist and writer better known as Zakhar Prilepin, and is banned from entering Bosnia and Herzegovina.

As he was going to an annual celebration of the Serb writer Peter Kocic in Banja Luka in the summer of 2018, the Border Police of Bosnia and Herzegovina handed him an order saying that the Intelligence and Security Agency, OSA has declared him “a threat to the security, public order or international relations of Bosnia and Herzegovina”.

Bosnian media reported that Prilepin insisted that he “could not pose a threat to Bosnia and had no aspirations of that sort”, adding that he had “never been banned from entering any European state”.

Prilepin has strongly supported Moscow-backed rebels in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, who set up the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republic and have been fighting against Ukrainian government forces since 2014. At one point Prilepin joined the rebels as a military volunteer in the Donetsk region, and he now leads a Russian political party called For Truth.

The Union of Donbas Volunteers plans to cooperate with the For Truth party at the upcoming Russian elections, which must be held on or before September 19 this year.

However, cooperation with the ruling United Russia party is much more important for the Union. United Russia is led by former president and prime minister Dmitry Medvedev, but is actually President Vladimir Putin’s party, although formally he has no connections with it.

For Borodai, cooperation with United Russia would represent a safe ticket to the Duma through commitment to Putin. Borodai said in a recent statement that the Russian president is “the creator and informal leader” of United Russia, and that the Union “supports the course of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and, in accordance with that, the United Russia party”.

“We should recall that the volunteers have many connections with various structures and MPs of United Russia, which has also helped volunteers who came to Donbas, and the residents of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republic, on several occasions. In time, jointly with United Russia, we will outline the form that our cooperation will take, and its goals,” Borodai said.

Seeking votes from the separatist ‘republics’

The Union of Donbas Volunteers expressed its intention to enter the political arena in Russia last autumn. It initially said it would work with smaller parties, such as For Truth and Homeland, but an alliance with United Russia would offer far more possibilities.

But although the Union has described it as “one of the key internal political and strategic priorities”, it has not been officially confirmed yet; at least not by United Russia.

Borodaj (on the right) visited Serbia as part of a delegation that included representatives of Cossack organizations[Foto: Facebook]

People interviewed by BIRN Bosnia and Herzegovina said that no final decision on cooperation has been reached yet.

Alla Hurska, an analyst with the Jamestown Foundation think-tank in Washington, cautioned that it is too early to predict the Union’s chances in the Russian elections, because “everything can still change”.

But Hurska said she assumes that Borodai could be a candidate for the Rostov region, on the border with Ukraine, and can help United Russia get votes from Russian citizens living in the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.

Hurska said that Prilepin, who has advocated independence for the Donbas region for years, might be “an attractive figure” for votes from Donetsk and Luhansk.

Vitaly Myagkiy, a journalist from the URA.RU news agency, told BIRN Bosnia and Herzegovina that for now it is only possible to “construct theories”, as there is no official confirmation that the Union’s leaders will run in the election. However, if they run alongside United Russia, he said, “then their success is probable”, considering the strength of the ruling party.

Myagkiy recently published an article explaining that some of the people who live in separatist-controlled areas of eastern Ukraine can vote in the Russian elections.

“It is important to understand: people who live in the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics but don’t have a Russian passport will not be able to participate in the elections,” Myagkiy said.

He said that media have reported that at least 500,000 people who live in Donbas have a Russian passport and so will be able to cast a vote in the elections if they are 18 or over.

Possession of a passport of one of the self-proclaimed republics does not allow the right to vote in Russian elections [EPA / Alexander Ermochenko]

Hurska said that the official Russian statistics say that 639,000 Donbas residents have obtained Russian citizenship, but that other sources mention “only” 400,000 people.

“Although Russia has never officially recognised the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, in the summer of 2020, voters from those areas already took part in voting for changes and amendments to the Russian Constitution. They voted in the Rostov region. However, it is still not quite clear where they will be able to vote in the autumn,” Hurska said.

‘Serbs can vote if they have a Russian passport’

The conflict between Ukrainian and pro-Russian forces in Donbas erupted following the Russian annexation of Crimea in the spring of 2014. Over the course of seven years more than 14,000 people have been killed.

Recently, tensions increased in the border area, with the conflicting parties accusing each other of breaching the truce. The first signs of a new escalation were accompanied by indications of arrival of volunteers to aid pro-Russian troops. Among them were Serbian volunteers, as BIRN Bosnia and Herzegovina has reported.

One of those who headed to Donbas as soon as the sabres started rattling was Dejan Beric, who previously joined the pro-Russian forces in the Donetsk area as a sniper several years ago.

“I own a Donetsk People’s Republic citizen’s passport – it is not just a piece of paper, but an obligation too. This is my republic and I am obliged to protect it,” Beric told the Donbas Today website.
Serb volunteers fighting in Donbas can vote in the parliamentary elections in Russia if they have Russian citizenship and passport, experts said.

“If we are talking about Dejan Beric, as far as I know, he has the passport of the Donetsk People’s Republic, not of Russia. Those with Russian citizenship have the constitutional right to vote,” Hurska explained.

Myagkiy also confirmed that Beric or any other volunteer from the Balkans, if they only have the passport of one of the self-proclaimed republics, do not have the right to vote in the Russian elections.

Joining foreign paramilitary or para-police forces is banned under Bosnian and Serbian laws, but that has not stopped dozens of volunteers from going to eastern Ukraine.

Serbian courts have convicted a total of 29 individuals of going to Ukraine to fight. The majority of them received suspended sentences after admitting their guilt.

According to the Security Ministry of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 11 Bosnian citizens took part in combat in Ukraine. Only one stood trial, Gavrilo Stevic, and the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina acquitted him last year.

The Bosnian state prosecution recently confirmed to BIRN Bosnia and Herzegovina that the State Investigation and Protection Agency has filed a report about a Bosnian citizen from Banja Luka who was arrested last year on his return from eastern Ukraine.

The prosecution said that the case “is being worked on” and the man who was arrested is suspected of “unlawfully forming and joining foreign paramilitary or para-police formations”.