'Serbian Republic', pronounced [repǔblika sr̩̂pskaː] ⓘ) was a self-proclaimed proto-statelet in Southeastern Europe under the control of the Army of Republika Srpska during the Bosnian War.

The borders of the post-1995 RS are, with a few negotiated modifications, based on the front lines and situation on the ground at the time of the signing of the Dayton Agreement on 14 December 1995.

Its territory encompasses a number of Bosnia and Herzegovina's numerous historical geographic regions, but (due to the above-mentioned nature of the inter-entity boundary line) it contains very few of them in entirety.

It declared the republic a sovereign and independent state and rejected "any constitutional solutions for a future Yugoslav community which would not include both Croatia and Serbia".

[5] Bosnian Serbs claimed that this was a necessary step since the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, at that time, defined that no major changes were to be granted short of a unanimous agreement on all three sides.

[7] The parliamentary government of Bosnia and Herzegovina (with a clear Bosniak and Croat majority) asserted that this plebiscite was illegal, but the Bosnian Serb assembly acknowledged its results.

At the end of May 1992, after the withdrawal of Yugoslav forces from Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Second Military District was essentially transformed into the Main Staff of the VRS.

The new army immediately set out to achieve by military means the six "strategic objectives" of the Serbian people in Bosnia and Herzegovina (the goals of which were reaffirmed by an operational directive issued by General Mladić on 19 November 1992).

The gravest of those offenses were the Srebrenica Genocide in 1995, where nearly 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were systematically executed by the VRS, and the long military siege of Sarajevo that resulted in 12,000 civilian casualties.

A highly classified report by the CIA which was leaked by the press claimed that Bosnian Serbs were the first to commit atrocities, carried out 90 percent of war crimes, and were the only party who systematically attempted to "eliminate all traces of other ethnic groups from their territory".

Many Republika Srpska officials were also indicted for creation and running of detention camps, in particular Omarska, Manjaca, Keraterm, Uzamnica and Trnopolje where thousands of detainees were held.

Duško Tadić, former SDS leader in Kozarac and a former member of the paramilitary forces supporting the attack on the district of Prijedor, was found guilty by the ICTY of crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, and violations of the customs of war at Omarska, Trnopolje and Keraterm detention camps.

While the individuals responsible for destruction of national heritage have not yet been found, or indicted, it has been widely reported by international human rights agencies that the "Bosnian Serb authorities issued orders or organized or condoned efforts to destroy Bosniak and Croatian cultural and religious institutions".

On 2 August 2001, the Hague Tribunal found General-Major Radislav Krstić, the commander of the VRS Drina Corps at the time responsible for the Srebrenica massacre, guilty of genocide.

Two days after international judges in The Hague ruled that Bosnian Serb forces had committed genocide in the killing of nearly 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica in 1995.

[29] Between May 1992 to January 1993, Bosniak forces under the leadership of Naser Orić attacked and destroyed scores of Serbian villages in the areas around Srebrenica.

The ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party has used these casualties for political purposes and as a means of diminishing the July 1995 crime committed against Bosniaks.

The Sarajevo-based Research and Documentation Centre, a non-partisan institution, found that Serb casualties in the Bratunac municipality amounted to 119 civilians and 424 soldiers.

According to the ICTY, volunteers from Russia, Greece, and Romania fighting for the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) numbered between at least 500 to more than 1,500.

[40] The Serb, Croat and Bosniak authorities all issued their own dinar currencies in the territories they controlled, printing large excess of money to finance their operations which resulted in high inflation.

[49] As a result of Operation Storm, nearly 200,000 Serbs fled from Croatia and a large portion of them found refuge in Bosnia, especially in Republika Srpska.

[50] After the war numerous laws were passed by the Republika Srpska authorities under the auspices of the international community acting through the Office of the High Representative (OHR).

Most of the changes were done as to retract effects of ethnic cleansing and allow refugees to return, but also as a response to numerous reports of human rights abuses that were taking place in the entity.

"The number of Muslim soldiers killed by Bosnian Serbs out of personal revenge or lack of knowledge of international law is probably about 100...It is important to uncover the names of the perpetrators in order to accurately and unequivocally establish whether or not these were isolated instances.

[57] In 2004, the international community's High Representative Paddy Ashdown had the Government of Republika Srpska form a committee to investigate the events.

[63] The Office of the High Representative responded and stated that: "The Republika Srpska government should reconsider its conclusions and align itself with the facts and legal requirements and act accordingly, rather than inflicting emotional distress on the survivors, torture history and denigrate the public image of the country".