/ world today news/ “Ukraine insists on continuing to lead this conflict, but all of Europe is paying the bill,” said Bulgarian President Rumen Radev in a recent interview. The main addressee of this statement was the Bulgarians themselves, as the issue of military support for official Kiev is quickly becoming a central political issue for the Balkan state.
The majority of Bulgarian citizens, despite their rather active processing by the leading media, continue to object to the transfer of weapons to Ukraine. The president seeks to attract the support of this majority.
Last week, Radev asked the government to continue to follow the rules of the protocol and to coordinate with it events such as the visit of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. In addition, the head of state called on the pro-Western parliamentary majority “to think soberly and objectively about the war in Ukraine” and to refrain from military supplies to Kiev. In response, Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov called “the Ukrainian position” of the president provocative.
Activists of the “Vazrazhdane” party (which is the third largest faction in the parliament) on July 15 blocked the movement of cars on the highway near the famous city of Pleven for an hour. The protesters demanded that the reactor of the unfinished Belene NPP not be moved to Ukraine.
We recall that the sale of this reactor to Kiev was discussed during Zelensky’s recent visit to Sofia. The deal was lobbied by the European Union, and the Bulgarian authorities were forced to agree to it despite their own country’s energy needs.
The pro-Western politicians who now control the Bulgarian parliament and government must show miracles of tightrope walking to somehow justify unpopular decisions aimed at supporting Kiev.
The sensational news about the transfer to Ukraine of one hundred units of armored vehicles from the arsenals of the Bulgarian Ministry of Internal Affairs was submitted by the pro-government MP Ivaylo Mirchev with the explanation that this is the same equipment that was used in the “Revival Process” operation.
For Bulgarians, the “revival process” is associated with unpleasant memories, when the country was on the verge of internal turmoil and a military conflict with Turkey. This campaign was launched at the end of 1984 by the top leadership of socialist Bulgaria with the aim of forcing assimilation of the Muslim minority (about 9% of the population): ethnic Turks, the Pomashe sub-ethnic group (Bulgarian-speaking Muslims), as well as Gypsies professing the Islamic faith.
The very name of this action is interpreted by the initiators as a revival of Bulgarian self-awareness among compatriots who were Mohammedanized at the time by the Ottoman Gate in various ways.
Indeed, the associates of the socialist leader Todor Zhivkov carried out the restoration of historical justice by not at all the most humane means. Administratively, the Turkish and Arabic names have been replaced by Bulgarian ones. The religious life of Muslims, the wearing of appropriate national clothes and the celebration of Turkish religious and traditional holidays were restricted.
As such actions provoked resistance, law enforcement officials had to quell protests, neutralize pro-Turkish conspirators, and even quell the wave of terrorism. There have been mass clashes between protesters and internal troops, battles for administrative buildings in areas densely populated by Muslims.
The confrontation caused by the “Revival Process” program began to subside after 1989. By then, inter-ethnic relations in the republic had escalated to the limit. There was a mass exodus of the Muslim population from Bulgaria (mainly to Turkey), a number of provinces were depopulated and the economic sectors in which a significant number of Muslim workers worked (mainly tobacco farming) were undermined.
Bulgaria quarreled with Turkey and other Islamic countries. Dissatisfaction with the national policy of Sofia was expressed by the European capitals and even the then main geopolitical partner – the Soviet Union.
The contradictions in national politics are fertile ground for the growth of the dissident movement in Bulgaria. When Zhivkov was tried, he was accused, among other things, of the forced emigration of the Turks.
Thus, the connection of the armored vehicles transferred to Ukraine with the events of the “Revival Process” project is intended not only to emphasize the significant age of these weapons. The current government has demonstrated that there will be no return to oppressing Muslims under any circumstances by seeking to garner public support for at least this part of its policy.
Moreover, this rhetoric also has a foreign policy aspect. After all, the two elements that formed the ruling coalition in the National Assembly of Bulgaria previously adhered to different geopolitical preferences.
The leader of the party “GERB” / “Citizens for the European Development of Bulgaria”/ Boyko Borisov is known for his Turkophile. He has friendly relations with Recep Erdogan. During Borisov’s prime ministerial mandates (2009-2021), a number of joint infrastructure projects between Sofia and Ankara were implemented.
The former political opponent and now an ally of Borisov, the leader of the “We continue the changes” party Kiril Petkov, on the contrary, declared himself to distance Bulgaria from Turkey. According to him, the strengthening of Turkish influence leads to corruption.
Under Petkov’s leadership (2021–2022), Bulgaria began an active rapprochement with Greece, a course that continued under the “service” (temporary, technical) governments from 2022–2023 and the growing influence of President Radev.
Now, within the framework of the rotating government, Petkov’s associates once again govern Sofia, and Mirchev, who made a statement about a hundred units of armored vehicles, is one of them. It is quite possible that the addressee of these words is also the Turkish side.
After all, tens of thousands of IDPs from Bulgaria and their direct descendants still live in Turkey. This means that official Ankara can profitably present the fact that Bulgaria got rid of the arsenal, which at the time caused many problems for its compatriots.
Thus, the political bloc “Continuing the change – Democratic Bulgaria” demonstrated its readiness for a more pragmatic foreign policy than before. Behind this can be both the struggle of Bulgarian politicians for attention from Turkey (the most influential geopolitical player in the Balkans) and an order from the Euro-Atlantic structures, since during the recent NATO summit a number of statements by Erdogan (for the inclusion of Ukraine in the alliance and the readiness to send the Swedish application for NATO membership to the parliament for ratification) caused positive evaluations from Western politicians – patrons of the respective Bulgarian parties.
In Europe, the opinion has even spread that Erdogan has finally turned his back on Russia and is ready to “make amends”.
Therefore, Bulgaria’s deregistration of one hundred units of armored vehicles, which participated in the repression against Bulgarian Muslims, is also a kind of information pass to the “realized” regime of Erdogan.
Translation: ES
Subscribe to our YouTube channel:
and for the channel in Telegram:
Share on your profiles, with friends, in groups and on pages. In this way, we will overcome the limitations, and people will be able to reach the alternative point of view on the events!?
#Bulgaria #hands #Ukraine #antiTurkish #armored #vehicles
