In 2024, the high intensity of attacks against national security related to operations of foreign special services, malicious information campaigns and cyber-attacks. This is stated in the Annual Report on the activities of the DANS for 2023
The Agency singles out Russia as the main threat, and China as a growing challenge. The instability of the Western Balkans is also highlighted in the report.
Last year's report noted that Russia's behavior generated increasing threats to global security. Fears of possible Russian aggression towards other countries are also increasing. Moscow's aspiration to undermine the unity and hinder the expansion of NATO is constant, and for this purpose a hybrid approach is applied, reports DANS.
It adds that "Russia's continued aggression against Ukraine and Moscow's malign hybrid campaigns remain a major erosive factor, and China's growing assertiveness for power projection positions it as a systemic challenge to Euro-Atlantic security.
Regarding the Western Balkans in 2023, the potential for escalation of tension, accompanied by manifestations of violence, remains.
The State Agency for National Security indicates that in the region there is also increased hate speech against Bulgaria, including in some cases physical attacks against citizens of other countries who identify themselves as Bulgarians.
The report notes that the security situation in the Western Balkans is also complicated by the high activity of organized crime, illegal migration, corruption, violation of the rule of law and retreats from democratic principles against the background of intensifying authoritarian tendencies.
DANS reports that in 2023 the role of special services within the hybrid toolkit for impact on Bulgarian territory will increase. Their priority goals remain influencing the process of political decision-making in our country, as well as creating positions for acquiring information at the central and local level.
As more significant results in 2023 in countering the risks and threats from the activities of foreign services, the National Security Service reported intercepting the activities of four Russian and two Belarusian citizens. The activities of six other foreigners, sympathetic to the activities of foreign special services, were also stopped.
It is indicated that last year, by orders of the chairman of the National Security Agency, coercive administrative measures were imposed on 54 people whose activities pose a threat to national security under the Law on Foreigners in the Republic of Bulgaria and the Law on the Entry, Residence and Departure of the country.
DANS has proposed the inclusion of 393 persons in the array of foreigners who are not wanted in the country.
As a result of the actions of DANS, coercive administrative measures were imposed on 14 foreign citizens last year for carrying out logistics or complicity in terrorist activity. The database of unwanted foreigners in Bulgaria includes 221 people suspected of involvement in terrorist or extremist activity.
Compulsory administrative measures have been imposed on 33 foreign nationals, identified as carriers of risk to the country's security, by orders of the chairman of the National Security Agency. At the suggestion of the National Security Agency, 159 people have been included in the information array of unwanted foreigners in Bulgaria for reasons affecting national security and in connection with their participation in schemes for the illegal transfer of migrants across the border.
In 2023, DANS sent proposals to the State Agency for Refugees to revoke the temporary protection of five foreign citizens for participating in migrant smuggling.