Bulgaria expected to join Hungary in its bid for peace in Ukraine
March 30th, 2023A pro-government pundit welcomes the changes in the Bulgarian political landscape with the fall of the government which was Ukraine’s number one ammunition supplier in the first stages of the war.
On Mandiner, Mátyás Kohán admits that Hungary has remained painfully isolated among NATO and EU allies with her refusal to supply weapons to Ukraine. He writes that demands for an immediate ceasefire and peace talks are dominant in the world, but not in the West. Under Prime Minister Kiril Petkov, Bulgaria led what Kohán sees as extremely unpopular anti-Russian policies, sending ammunition and diesel oil to Ukraine. As a result, Mr Petkov lost his majority, was forced to resign, and is facing next month’s elections with a mere 25 percent of the electorate supporting him. President Rumen Radev, the only leader with democratic legitimacy for the moment, he continues, has refrained from signing the declaration of central European heads of state demanding more speedy arms supplies to Ukraine (along with Hungarian President Katalin Novák, who was mistakenly reported as the only one to do so). Most recently, Kohán remarks, President Radev refused to join the EU move to buy ammunition for Ukraine. Kohán interprets these events as signalling ‘the end of war psychosis’ in Bulgaria. He doesn’t consider such developments as the beginning of a general shift in the West but doesn’t exclude ‘similar small signs from Slovakia, Romania, Italy and Croatia’.