Bosnia's Serb Republic is expected to bar the state police and judiciary from operating on its territory on Thursday, a day after a state court ordered the Russian-backed separatist Serb president to step down for defying an international peace envoy.

A court in Bosnia has sentenced the pro-Russia Bosnian Serb president, Milorad Dodik, to one year in prison and banned him from politics for six years over his separatist actions as tensions mount in

The Kremlin on Thursday criticized a one-year prison sentence for Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik as a "political" decision that could have "negative consequences" for the region. Dodik was sentenced on Wednesday for defying rulings made by an international envoy charged with overseeing the country's peace accords.

The Kremlin said on Thursday it believed a one-year jail term and political ban handed down to Bosnian Serb separatist leader Milorad Dodik was politically-motivated and could have negative and destabilising consequences for the Balkans.

But the Bosnian-Serb leader Milorad Dodik made light of the verdict at the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The president of the country's majority-Serb Republika Srpska region told supporters at a rally in the regional capital Banja Luka there was "no reason to worry".