ReportThe centrist Prime Minister will ask Parliament on May 4 to approve the shipment of weapons to kyiv. But in this country traditionally close to Moscow, the question divides even within the majority.
Thursday, April 28, around a hundred activists from the Bulgarian nationalist “Renaissance” party gathered in the dark reception room of the main hotel in Gotsé Deltchev, a small town of 20,000 inhabitants lost in southern Bulgaria. to listen to their leader pour out, in particular, on the war in Ukraine.
Kostadin Kostadinov, 43, nicknamed “kopeïkin” (in reference to the penny of a ruble) by his opponents because of his displayed proximity to Moscow, harangues the room: “If Parliament votes to send arms to Ukraine, we will bring down the government. Are you ready to block the roads? »
“Why don’t we start right away”, answers him, flower in the rifle, a first man. A woman screams: “Why are the Bulgarians stupid enough to import all these fascist Ukrainians into our country? » She talks about the 100,000 refugees who have chosen Bulgaria as their destination since the start of the conflict. Mr Kostadinov avoids following her in such an aggressive message, but he castigates the Bulgarian government “parachuted by the American clique” for the secret purpose “to weaken Russia and Europe”.
Renaissance has nothing marginal in Bulgaria. The party sits in Parliament and, thanks to the war in Ukraine, it continues to climb in the polls, especially after demonstrating in Sofia waving Russian flags. On Wednesday, May 4, he will do everything to deepen the divisions that are working in this country of 6.5 million inhabitants around the conflict in Ukraine during a vote on an explosive question in the National Assembly: Bulgaria must send arms to Ukraine?
Cultural and historical proximity to Moscow
Although a member of NATO (since 2004) and of the European Union (EU, since 2007), this Balkan country has so far refrained from directly supplying arms to kyiv, despite the obvious interest Ukrainians for Bulgarian weapons. In mid-April, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba even spent three days in Sofia to implore the country to change its mind. “Bulgarian armaments are 90% compatible with those of Ukraine, and Bulgaria is one of the rare countries of the former Warsaw Pact which has not ceased to produce ammunition for Soviet-type armaments”explains Chavdar Chervenkov, a former lieutenant general in the Bulgarian army and now an analyst at the Center for the Study of Democracy.
Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov, a 41-year-old centrist with an American look inherited from his childhood in Canada and his studies at Harvard, has clearly chosen his side. “As a member of the democratic world and the EU, we will support Ukraine”, he promised, Thursday, April 28, traveling to kyiv to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. In particular, he mentioned the possibility of repairing Ukrainian heavy weapons in Bulgarian factories. To try to convince his fellow citizens on this sensitive issue, he keeps reminding us that Bulgaria is the last NATO member, along with Viktor Orban’s Hungary, to refuse to give up arms.
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