There is no separation of fact and opinion in the documentary, according to Selma Zulic-Siljak, a researcher with the Sarajevo-based Media Center.

“We have this content that is based entirely on hearsay and not put into any sort of context or supported by any additional facts or evidence,” said Zulic-Siljak.

In the new edition of Detektor Magazine, a team of experts and journalists has fact-checked the information presented in the documentary and analyzed the film’s content.

Denial of the Judicially Established Facts of the Bosnian War

The documentary features interviews with several individuals who openly deny atrocities that were carried out by the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war from 1992 to 1995, including the fatal shelling of the Markale marketplace in Sarajevo on February 5, 1994.

Those in the film assert that no criminal convictions were handed down by the Hague Tribunal for the Markale massacre, and that there is no evidence that the projectile was fired from VRS positions. At no point are these statements corrected by anyone from the RT network, despite the fact that they are demonstrably false.

Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, the top political and military leaders of the Republika Srpska, were both convicted for the attack on Markale, as was Stanislav Galic, the commander of the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps of the VRS. All three men received life sentences for charges which included those related to the shelling of Markale.

The Tribunal also confirmed that the projectile, which killed 68 people and left more than 140 injured, was fired from Mrkovici, a position held by the VRS Sarajevo-Romanija Crops. This was conclusively determined by the Trial Chamber based on ample evidence, including official military orders, expert reports, and investigative findings.

Harun Karcic, a journalist for Al Jazeera Balkans, has been analyzing Russian foreign policy in Bosnia and Herzegovina for many years. He says that although the Russian government approved the establishment of the Hague Tribunal in the 1990s, it has continuously called into question the Tribunal’s rulings about not only the attack on Markale but also other known massacres.

“Even back then, they claimed that the Bosnian Army staged those massacres. Now they are trying to find common ‘talking points’ with Bosnian Serbs, such as that from their point of view, Markale was a staged event and what happened in Bucha was also staged,” states Karcic.

Indeed, those featured in the film draw direct parallels between these events and the reports of the mass murder of civilians in the Ukrainian city of Bucha during the retreat of Russian forces in the spring of 2022. Specifically, as Karcic notes, they claim that these massacres were performances planned well in advance for the purpose of vilifying first Serbs and later Russians in front of television cameras.

In addition to Markale, the RT documentary also devotes significant screentime to the denial of the Srebrenica genocide, often utilizing the same tropes of pre-orchestrated conspiracy.

During the film, Russian historian Elena Guskova claims that former US President Bill Clinton stated that 5,000 Muslims needed to be killed so that he could justify a military intervention in the region. She states in the interview:

“Today we know that the operation was planned in England, France, and the USA. (…) Some sources say that there were 200 casualties, some say there were 300. According to other sources, there were up to 2,000. But this data does not mean that there was a genocide. And it is still unclear who killed them. There are no visible bullet wounds on 97 percent of those killed.”

The events which transpired in Srebrenica in July 1995 were established as genocide more than 20 years ago by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. The conviction of Radislav Krstic in 2001 was the first of five verdicts in which seven people were found guilty of involvement in the Srebrenica genocide.

The verdict against Krstic states that the VRS leadership, deliberately and with genocidal intent, planned and orchestrated the crimes committed by the VRS in Srebrenica. Witness testimonies as well as forensic and documentary evidence prove that well over 7,000 people went missing after the fall of Srebrenica. Since then, mortal remains of the majority of those reported missing have been uncovered in mass graves.

The documentary is available for online viewing and is also aired on the RT TV channel, which is still broadcasted by certain domestic cable providers in Bosnia and Herzegovina. For Zulic-Siljak, this is an alarming aspect which should not be overlooked.

As Zulic-Siljak states, “We cannot simply ignore the fact that this material is accessible. It repeats a narrative, the sources of which include five or six directors of various centers, four people from academia… Thus, this narrative was already embedded in the education system, but now it has been presented in a more accessible format so that it can be absorbed faster.”

The Communications Regulatory Agency of Bosnia and Herzegovina previously sanctioned RTRS, an entity-level public broadcasting network, for airing content that contradicted established judicial facts and was offensive to victims. However, RT is a foreign channel. This means that although it continues to be transmitted through some domestic cable providers, the Communications Regulatory Agency does not have jurisdiction over its content.

Motivations behind the RT Documentary on the “Bosnian Caliphate”

At first glance, it appears nonsensical that the Russian state broadcaster would allocate time and resources, especially amidst the war in Ukraine, to promulgating inaccurate falsehoods about the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

However, those interviewed by Detektor argue that there is a clear motive behind RT’s production and broadcast of the film.

Zarfa Hrnjic-Kuduzovic, a professor of investigative journalism at the Faculty of Philosophy of Tuzla University and a media content quality analyst, asserts that RT’s documentary is first and foremost a conspiracy theory. It is not difficult to draw a parallel between this documentary and the narratives propagated by numerous media outlets in Bosnia and Herzegovina over the years.

“There are several notable commonalities between this pseudo-documentary and certain media content in the Republika Srpska. Firstly, are the conspiracy theories… they blame the problems we have here in BiH on foreigners, principally the Americans and the British, who are said to have conspired against the Serb people, which is the cause of the war. Another shared element is the claim made in this pseudo-documentary about the rise of radical Islam in BiH and the effort to create an Islamic state,” says Hrnjic-Kuduzovic.

Anti-Islamic sentiment is indeed at the heart of the documentary, variously manifested in implicit parallels to scenes from the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York and references to a Muslim plot to ethnically cleanse Serbs from Sarajevo – ironically made against the backdrop of footage depicting VRS soldiers sniping at the city.

The Russian government and RT TV station have long manipulated European anxieties by exploiting the Bosnian Muslim narrative. As Karcic explains:

“They are attempting to present the wider Balkan region as a hotbed of Islamic extremism. Portraying Bosnian Muslims as extremists or Bosnia and Herzegovina as a hotbed of Islamic extremism woks in favor of individuals such as Milorad Dodik and Dragan Covic, who have certain secessionist ambitions and can now say: ‘We want physical separation from radical Muslims who want a caliphate.’”

Hrnjic-Kuduzovic emphasizes the comparisons made in the documentary between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Ukraine:

“And what is the parallel? Both Bosnia and Ukraine are under the influence of the nasty West, which is actually exploiting them. On the other hand, Russia and Serbs in Bosnia must react to protect their people from Ukrainians and Muslims whom the West has instrumentalized.”

This is not the first time the Russian government has endorsed claims made by Dodik and his allies. Reports produced by the Republika Srpska government denying the siege of Sarajevo and the Srebrenica genocide were supported by Russian state funding, which promoted them within Russia. Additionally, Raphael Israeli, who presided over the commission examining the suffering of Serbs in Sarajevo, has appeared as a guest on RT programs.

Detektor Magazine has made a request for an interview with RT, but as of yet, the network has not responded.