Russian President Putin to Visit Bulgaria in 2018

Radev's press office announced the Putin invitation late on Monday evening, following a statement published on the Kremlin's website earlier in the day.

The two presidents had a 20-minute telephone conversation on the Bulgarian side's initiative on the occasion of the Day of Russia on June 12, during which the "deep historic and spiritual connection between the Bulgarian and the Russian peoples" was discussed, Radev's press office said.

On Putin's initiative, the two presidents reviewed bilateral trade and economic partnerships, as well as relations in the field of energy, where the "mutual wish for further development was expressed, without its politicisation and on the basis of mutual benefit".

"The Russian president thanked President Rumen Radev for his contribution to the development of bilateral relations," the statement on the Bulgarian presidency's website says.

The exact date of Putin's 2018 visit is still to be set.

Ex-President Georgi Parvanov, known for his firm pro-Russian stance, suggested in February that March 3 next year - a Bulgarian national holiday marking the liberation from five centuries of Ottoman rule as a result of the 1877-78 Russo-Turkish war - would be a suitable date for Putin to come to the country.

The idea of a Putin visit has also been backed by the Russian ambassador to Sofia, Anatoly Makarov, and ex-deputy prime minister Denitsa Zlateva from the Bulgarian Socialist Party.

Putin last visited Bulgaria as prime minister of Russia in 2010, when he came to sign the contract for the Bulgarian part of the South Stream pipeline project with Boyko Borissov's first government, and to discuss the Belene nuclear project.

But three years later, in 2013, Borissov cancelled the Belene project due...