Tag: bulgaria

‘The Cause Is Doomed’: New Anti-EU Bulgarian Government Stops Sending Military Aid to Ukraine

Radev is not toeing the Brussels’ line.

The new Bulgarian government that was sworn in on 8 May 2026 under Prime Minister Rumen Radev is already showing it means business.

Radev’s ‘Progressive Bulgaria’ party won a landslide victory in April with 45 % of the vote and 135 seats in the 240-seat parliament – the first majority government in Bulgaria since 1997.

The government is Pro-EU membership but markedly pro-Russian and Euroskeptic in terms of foreign policy, defending national sovereignty.

So, there you have it: a NATO and EU country bucking Brussels’ war dogma.

Radev has long opposed sanctions on Russia and military aid to Ukraine, and with one month in office, his government has already stopped sending weapons to Ukraine.

This was announced today (9) by the country’s Defense Minister Dimitar Stoyanov.

Politico reported:

“The move cements the new Bulgarian government’s opposition to EU support for Ukraine after Russia-aligned Prime Minister Rumen Radev won a parliamentary election in a landslide in April. Bulgaria has sent 13 aid packages to Kyiv since Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion, but Radev has described the Ukrainian cause as ‘doomed’.

‘We have already made it clear that the war in Ukraine will not be resolved on the battlefield. We are witnessing a war of attrition, and no matter how much weaponry is amassed, the only result is the loss of human lives. It is time to sit down at the negotiating table’, Stoyanov said at a press conference on Tuesday.”

Keep reading

EU & NATO Member State Bulgaria Tells American Military to Leave After Trump Says No To Visa-Free Travel Deal

Bulgaria’s new government has moved to terminate an arrangement that allows American military aircraft to use Sofia Airport for refueling and logistical operations, linking the decision to the Trump administration’s continued refusal to grant visa-free travel to Bulgarian citizens.

Prime Minister Rumen Radev, elected weeks ago in a landslide election, announced Friday that permission for American aircraft and personnel to remain at Sofia’s Vasil Levski Airport would expire at the end of June, bringing an abrupt end to an agreement approved by the previous government earlier this year.

The decision marks one of the first major foreign-policy disputes between the newly elected Bulgarian government and the Trump administration.

Radev said he personally raised the issue of visa-free travel during a recent conversation with President Donald Trump but failed to secure a positive response.
“I called for the suspension of visas for Bulgarian citizens during my conversation with the American President, but I have not received a positive answer,” Radev said.

While acknowledging the complexity of immigration and regulatory procedures in the United States, the Bulgarian leader suggested that Sofia could not indefinitely continue accommodating American requests without progress on issues important to Bulgaria.

“We also have our priorities and we cannot respond positively to the request for long stays of aircraft and tankers at Sofia airport,” he added.

Under the extension approved by the Bulgarian government, the arrangement will remain in force only until June 30.

The temporary extension is intended to provide time for allied militaries to relocate aircraft and personnel to alternative facilities elsewhere in Europe.

“We’re extending the permission until the end of June so we can give time to our allies to reschedule and find another location,” Radev explained.

The agreement currently covers up to 15 American military aircraft, associated equipment, and as many as 500 personnel.

Aircraft operating from Sofia have included Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker refueling aircraft, Lockheed C-130 Hercules transport planes, and Boeing C-17 Globemaster III heavy-lift cargo aircraft.

Bulgarian officials, for their part, have emphasized repeatedly that the aircraft were not intended for any kind of combat missions.

Former caretaker Defense Minister Atanas Zapryanov previously stated that the deployments were primarily logistical in nature and designed to support allied activities.

Keep reading

Resignation Of Bulgarian Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov Amidst Mounting Political And Social Crisis

Rosen Zhelyazkov’s resignation on December 11, 2025, just minutes before the Bulgarian parliament was due to vote on the sixth no-confidence motion against his cabinet, marks the abrupt end of yet another short-lived government in a country that has now been trapped in near-permanent political crisis for more than five years.

The immediate trigger was a wave of nationwide protests that began in late November over the government’s draft 2026 budget – the first to be presented in euros ahead of the country’s scheduled entry into the eurozone on January 1, 2026. What started as anger over proposed increases in dividend taxes and social-security contributions quickly morphed into a broader, visceral rejection of systemic corruption, oligarchic capture, and the perceived arrogance of the political class. Within days, tens of thousands of people – students, pensioners, ethnic Bulgarians and Turks alike – were filling the streets of Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna and smaller towns. The scale and diversity of the crowds were striking in a country of fewer than seven million inhabitants.

Zhelyazkov’s cabinet, formed in early 2025 after the October 2024 parliamentary election, was always fragile. It rested on a minority coalition dominated by GERB (the party of longtime strongman Boyko Borissov) and tolerated, rather than actively supported, by the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS) and figures close to the sanctioned media magnate Delyan Peevski. From the outset, the government was dogged by the same accusations that have haunted every administration since the great anti-corruption protests of summer 2020: that it served narrow elite interests while ordinary citizens continued to suffer from the EU’s highest poverty rate, lowest wages, and most entrenched corruption.

The current crisis is only the latest chapter in a grinding cycle. Since Borissov’s fall in 2020–2021, Bulgaria has held seven parliamentary elections and seen six prime ministers come and go, none of whom lasted a full term. Each collapse has followed the same pattern: a shaky coalition, mutual recriminations, a no-confidence vote or the withdrawal of informal support, and then fresh elections that reproduce the same fragmented parliament. Public trust in institutions has collapsed to the low teens, and the country’s chronic inability to form stable governments has repeatedly delayed or jeopardised key strategic goals – Schengen membership (finally achieved in 2024), euro adoption, and the disbursement of billions in EU recovery funds.

Keep reading