Bulgaria: The President is Against Sending Weapons to Ukraine, the Prime Minister wants a Just Peace

Bulgarian President Rumen Radev stated today that he has always - both in Bulgaria and in Brussels - maintained that the country should not interfere by providing arms to Ukraine in the conflict with Russia. He emphasized that he does not support participation in the initiative of the European Union countries to send 1 million projectiles to the attacked country.

"This is not the way to end this conflict. You see that it is escalating, you see that it carries huge risks. It is draining our economy and social systems. While I represented Bulgaria in the Council of the EU, I resisted this situation. It became clear that Bulgaria is not part of the initiative for 1 billion projectiles," said the head of state, according to whom it would be a mistake for Bulgaria to join the program. Recently, Defense Minister Todor Tagarev announced that the country is looking for a way to do this, and Bulgaria has the resources to help Ukraine with armaments. The opposite thesis was defended by the previous minister, Dimitar Stoyanov.

The president accused unnamed journalists of sharing manipulative information and of him being duplicitous on the subject. On March 25, the correspondent of "Nova TV" in Brussels, Antoineta Nikolova, reported that the press secretary of the president, Kiril Atanasov, called the television station to protest. Nikolova pointed out that the president's press office was enraged by the fact that it said on the midday news that the EU had come out with very strong positions regarding Ukraine and that Bulgaria would help with armaments by signing the document, although the president a little before that said that "we will not give anything directly". "Bulgaria does not support and is not part of the general order for the...