No, Bulgaria is not to blame for the war in Ukraine, as Russian President Vladimir Putin claims. In a documentary film dedicated to a quarter century since the rise of his authoritarian regime in Russia, Putin repeats the old propaganda thesis that NATO's expansion into Eastern Europe provoked the invasion of Ukraine.
This is stated in the position of "Yes, Bulgaria".
The Romanian Foreign Ministry reacted instantly, declaring Russia the only threat to security in Europe, while the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry under the leadership of Georg Georgiev of GERB has traditionally remained silent.
Our membership in NATO and the EU is the most significant international and civilizational success of Bulgaria in at least the last 80 years. Our joining the strongest military and the most powerful economic alliances has never been a threat to Russia, but a guarantee that we will not suffer the fate of Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Belarus or Armenia. Our membership in the European family and the North Atlantic organization is the deserved right of Bulgarians to live better than our ancestors, oppressed for 45 years under the totalitarian communist regime of the Soviet type.
Vladimir Putin's goal is to take away the rights, freedoms and security of European citizens in order to put us back under the Russian boot, which has been unsuccessfully trying to trample Ukraine for three years now. It is no coincidence that while Putin's homegrown proxies from "Vazrazhdane" repeat like parrots how we should leave NATO and renegotiate our membership in the EU, the summits between Moscow and Washington concern the Kremlin's demand that NATO withdraw to its pre-1997 borders.
We have news for Vladimir Putin and his followers around the world and in our country - Bulgaria belongs in the heart of Europe, not on the periphery of Eurasia. The right to security, prosperity and free choice is inalienable for all Bulgarian citizens and we will continue to defend it in the face of external and internal threats.
Protecting the Bulgarian national interest means categorically stopping any attempts by the Kremlin to re-impose its dominance on the Balkan Peninsula and in Eastern Europe, Yes, Bulgaria concludes.