Bosnia's Presidency Chairman Milorad Dodik said Friday that 100,000 Russian vaccines are on their way to the Serb-dominated Republika Srpska (RS) entity and that the inoculation process should begin in February.

“Last night I spoke to some important people and received guarantees that the RS will receive 100,000 vaccines from the Russian Federation, from various producers and will begin the inoculation according to the inoculation programme of the RS Health Ministry and Health institute. Vaccines will be free of charge and they won’t be commercialized. Everyone should be given the right to choose,” Dodik said at a press conference.

He pointed out that despite the efforts made by the Bosniak-Croat shared Federation (FBiH) entity and the RS through the joint COVAX program and paying for the vaccines, there are no indications that they will be delivered.

“Now we see that in terms of the vaccine supply, they have problems in powerful countries as well because they’re not coming continuously, which speaks of the disorder in that market. It’s obvious that vaccines need to be ensured via direct contact. According to some announcements, the EU will close the market and that is not optimistic. The EU didn’t find a way out at the beginning of the pandemic, and they can’t find it now with the vaccines. This can be a serious problem of trust and solidarity,” Dodik said.