Despite his extensive collaboration with the Axis, a Banja Luka street is named after him, and within Republika Srpska, the Serb-majority entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the actions of his Chetniks are celebrated and equated with those of the Partisans.

Shortly after its creation, largely spontaneous uprisings began to occur throughout the state, caused by the genocidal policies implemented by the Ustaše against Serbs, Jews and Roma.

[9] On 29 August, Drenović distinguished himself by planning and leading the capture of Mrkonjić Grad by the rebels, but when the town was recaptured by NDH forces four days later, the KPJ blamed him and his troops, citing their poor discipline and anti-Muslim chauvinism.

[11] Mrkonjić Grad did not have a strong KPJ presence, but was under the sway of the sectarian Serb elite, allowing Drenović to arrest Muslim communists, even confronting senior members of the Partisan leadership in the Bosanska Krajina.

[5] On 26 September 1941 at the Partisan conference in Stolice in the German-occupied territory of Serbia, the leadership decided to standardise its military organisation across occupied Yugoslavia.

[12] This narrow ideology involved extreme Serbian nationalism,[14][15] and irredentism focussed on the creation of a Greater Serbia,[16] and was anti-Croat,[16][17] anti-Muslim,[16][17] monarchist,[18] and anti-communist.

[10] In early February 1942, Drenović took a leading role in a conference intended to bring the 7th Glamoč Battalion, which had declared itself as "Chetnik", back into the Partisan structure.

On 6 February, a meeting of the leaders of the 1st, 2nd and 4th Battalions of the 3rd Krajina Detachment met and decided to bring Drenović back into the Partisan movement by organising an attack on the Italian and Ustaše garrison of Mrkonjić Grad.

The unit that led this offensive was the Grmeč Shock Anti-Chetnik Battalion, formed earlier that month from wholly loyal and reliable troops.

[27] He writes:[28] The Ustaše–Chetnik accords were driven neither by a confluence of Serbian and Croatian national interests nor by mutual desire for acceptance and respect, but rather because each side needed to obstruct Partisan advances.

[32] Other Chetnik leaders in Bosnia who had concluded alliances with the NDH by June 1942 included Mane Rokvić, Branko Bogunović, Stevo Rađenović and Momčilo Đujić.

Political scientist Sabrina P. Ramet observed that the cooperation with the NDH must be seen as a function of their mutual fear of the Partisans and emphasises the uncertainty and distrust that accompanied it.

[35] In October 1943, a team from the German Brandenburg Division under Oberleutnant Hermann Kirchner began working alongside Drenović's Chetniks in northwest Bosnia, operating forward reconnaissance groups and developing contact with anti-communist farmers to keep an eye on Partisan troop movements.

[43][44] Despite the extensive evidence of his collaboration with the Ustaše, Italians and Germans, Drenović's actions and those of his Chetniks are celebrated in the official history of World War II used within Republika Srpska, the Serb entity within Bosnia and Herzegovina.

According to Branko Todorović from the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Republika Srpska, this is consistent with the post-communist ideology of the early 1990s which sought to rehabilitate World War II nationalist movements on all sides to justify revenge for past crimes and drive national homogeneity.

Todorović opined that "if the future of the region lies in the celebration and glorification of Ustaše and Chetnik crimes and criminals then we are a really deeply ill society on a completely wrong path.