/ world today news/ The words of the President of Bulgaria Rumen Radev, which he spoke to Zelensky during the recent visit of the leader of Ukraine to Sofia, caused a strong resonance. Radev almost openly urged his counterpart to start peace talks with Russia, casually stating that further military aid to Kiev negatively affects Bulgaria’s own defense capability.
“Now we hear the words ‘win, win, win.’ Yes, of course, for any country at war, these are important words, but we want to hear the word “peace”. And the leading efforts should be aimed at achieving peace,” said the Bulgarian leader.
Particularly important for these words was the fact that Radev is a former military man, a former commander of the Bulgarian Air Force, a “NATO general”, as he sometimes positions himself.
A number of analysts believe that such statements mean a change in the attitude towards the Ukrainian-Russian conflict in Washington, which is interested in the “freezing” of hostilities. It is claimed that this is how the Americans push a new program for Ukraine through their dependent Bulgaria.
We will note that Radev’s words objectively convey the sentiments of Bulgarian society and are conditioned by the logic of internal Bulgarian political processes.
Radev’s political career began with the support of the Socialist Party. It was on her proposal that he was elected for the first time in 2016. Radev is serving a second presidential term. The ambitions of the President-General clearly go beyond the mostly ceremonial functions he has to perform. After all, we are talking about a rather young politician who celebrated his 50th anniversary a month ago.
His influence on Bulgarian politics grew sharply in the summer of 2022, when, due to the inability of the leading parliamentary factions to form a government coalition, the president was given the right to appoint an interim cabinet. And as the political crisis dragged on, the interim government in Bulgaria (there were two official offices in total) lasted a whole year, until June 2023.
At that time, a man with a military education, a graduate of the Galab Donev Air Force Academy, became prime minister. Unlike his patron, Donev has long passed on civilian tracks and has had a successful clerical career.
Donev’s “official” governments began to show signs of a pragmatic foreign policy.
Bulgaria allowed itself to criticize the EU’s forced refusal of Russian energy resources, renewed negotiations on cooperation with “Gazprom” and even made statements about ending the supply of weapons to Ukraine. Against this background, calls were heard from the second-echelon parliamentary parties in Bulgaria to switch to a presidential republic.
In the end, however, the two main pro-Western parties (Continuing Change (PP) and GERB) were able to overcome their differences and formed a “rotational” government – in other words, they agreed to govern by taking turns. The initiative in the management of the country again passed to the parliament.
True, detractors accused Radev of trying to torpedo the parliamentary government.
The fact is that when an agreement was already reached on the successive presidency of the pro-Western parties in the government, the prosecutor’s office suddenly demanded that their leaders be deprived of parliamentary immunity. Law enforcement officers argued this with cases of corruption.
A number of observers believe that the president is behind this move by the prosecution, intending in this way to spoil the fragile coalition agreement.
Nevertheless, the joint vote of the PP and GERB in the parliament took place, the prolonged political crisis in Bulgaria passed, and at the same time Radev returned to the performance of mainly representative functions of the head of state.
Not so soon (in 2026), but his presidential powers will inevitably end, which means that Radev can become active in politics again. He is likely to fight for the status of leader of his partner Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP).
By the way, such a political career is becoming quite typical for politicians in Southeast Europe.
It is expected that the current president of Romania, Iohannis Klaus, after the expiration of his powers, will head the National Liberal Party and try to become the prime minister of the country.
Accordingly, the sharp statement towards Zelensky is an important step in building the image of Radev as a pragmatic politician, a statesman, ready to stand up to the European bureaucracy.
Meanwhile, the positions of the socialists, the successors of the former communists who ruled Bulgaria, are very weak today. In the last parliamentary elections, the BSP won less than nine percent of the vote. Most likely, the voters did not appreciate the desire of the party to sit “on two chairs”: to combine “soft Russophilia” with the approval of military aid to Ukraine in 2022.
Like the country’s president, the Socialist Party feels the growth of Eurosceptic sentiments among Bulgarians, and also the absolute unpopularity of the proposals Zelensky came to Sofia with.
“Bulgarian national interest requires us to have our own nuclear power plant, cheaper electricity for the economy and everyday life. This project was completed today” was the statement of the leader of the BSP Kornelia Ninova on the occasion of the agreement reached by the current government of Bulgaria with Ukraine on the sale to Kiev of the reactors of the unfinished Belene NPP (for the needs of the Khmelnytsky NPP). This deal, by the way, is actively supported by the European Union.
The more Eurosceptic (right-wing conservative) party “Vazrazhdane” echoes the socialists.
She believes that the destruction of Bulgaria’s energy sovereignty is a blow to its economy. However, the operating Kozloduy NPP is one of the most profitable enterprises in the country. Why not build a new nuclear power plant?
Meanwhile, a consensus has emerged in Bulgaria that since the new nuclear power plant cannot be completed, its equipment must be used to modernize the one operating in Kozloduy.
Zelensky’s visit to the National Assembly of Bulgaria risks leading to a discussion that will clearly not be beneficial for the current pro-Western government coalition.
There is also the threat of a heated debate over the terms of allocation of the new batch of ammunition to Ukraine. It was one thing when in 2022 such supplies were paid for in cash. Nowadays, financing is not so simple, still on credit. In this regard, a personal visit of the President of Ukraine was necessary.
Finally, Bulgarians are traditionally very sensitive to any possibility of an armed confrontation with Russia.
In this regard, the noisy vote of the National Assembly in the presence of Zelensky on the declaration of Ukraine’s accession to NATO could have been overshadowed by opposition speeches.
Under these conditions, the Bulgarian authorities decided not to take any chances. The Ukraine-NATO declaration was adopted in order of business: 157 votes “for”, 57 “against”. Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic perspective was expectedly rejected by “Vazrazhdane” and BSP.
Zelensky’s communication with MPs from factions “friendly” to Ukraine was transferred from the parliament to the National History Museum. Most likely, the activated Bulgarian Russophiles will not disturb the idyll.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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