Bulgaria, historically known as the “Prussia of the Balkans”, is a country with an arms and ammunition production that far exceeds expectations. After the Russian Federation’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, simply by tripling its arms exports. No, they do not export to Ukraine directly, but through intermediaries, most often through Poland and Romania, two states that recently created a joint military-technical commission designed to synchronize arms purchases. It’s okay if Bulgaria doesn’t boast of huge military exports, the main thing is to supply what Ukrainians need now. Here we can list only the top 4 arms manufacturing companies: Arsenal, Terem, VMZ Sopot and Kintex, the ammunition and weapons they produce have a clear advantage in this war.

Bulgaria’s military industry specializes primarily in ammunition for Soviet weapons, and this is enough for Ukraine at the moment. Until they upgrade all weapons to NATO standards, the Ukrainians have found an effective and cheaper solution to supply and resist the Russian invasion.

But there are elections in Bulgaria, and the result of the parliamentary elections and support for Ukraine, unfortunately, are interconnected, so for the free world we should be interested in their fate. Any statement “For” or “Against” Ukraine regarding the war is counted as a vote of the Bulgarian voter. Let’s not forget that the arms industry brings a lot of money to Bulgaria ($4.3 billion last year alone), this industry also creates jobs, this issue should also concern Bulgarian politicians.

Let’s find a logical explanation why Bulgaria hid a statement about Bulgaria’s military support for Ukraine, even under a totally hostile Russia prime minister? As the Russians sabotage weapons depots, or rather they blow them up, this is what happened at the EMCO depot in July 2022 and in the past at the VMZ weapons depots or even the explosions at the weapons factory in Vrbetic, Czech Republic. Therefore, we can understand the motives behind the decision to keep these things secret and why does the Russian Federation know how many billions of euros worth of arms Bulgaria exported to Ukraine? Of course, this is a military secret that is not fully known even in Sofia, which is full of Russian spies.

By comparison, there are two countries in the European Union that have shied away from showing their support for Ukraine in this war. We are talking about Bulgaria and Romania, which are not proud of, let’s say, constant help to Ukrainians, but act more in the shadows to avoid any consequences for national security. Let’s not forget that these two states are on the periphery of the European Union and NATO and are border states on the Black Sea. These states prefer not to advertise how they help Ukraine in the war, and, unfortunately, they do not act like the eastern NATO countries, such as, for example, Poland, which acts exemplary, helping Ukraine as much as possible, where the entire Polish society and Polish the political class has a hostile attitude towards the history of the Russian Federation. The difference between Poland and Bulgaria, of course, is that one state shows full support for Ukraine, while the other prefers to operate in the shadows so as not to upset and antagonize the Russian Federation. Here you should also ask yourself, what justification does Romania have for not formalizing the aid offered to Ukraine?

For Bulgaria, this is self-evident. All this ambiguity is due to the fact that Bulgaria has a pro-Russian president, Rumen Radev, who has declared that the Crimean peninsula is Russian land, and of course there are several parties in the Bulgarian parliament that oppose aid to Ukraine. with weapons such as the Bulgarian Social Party (which supported the incumbent president in the election campaign), the Renaissance Party (openly pro-Russian) and the Bulgarian Ascension Party.

Although Bulgaria is a parliamentary republic and not a presidential one, an election is an election and it is important to choose your words in an election campaign. There is a saying: “politicians cannot be trusted, but even more so they should not be trusted in the election campaign.” The latest statements of Bulgarian President Rumen Radev, who tells us that Bulgaria does not participate in the EU’s joint procurement of ammunition for Ukraine, can be classified in the same way. Read the whole article and comment on Contributors.ro