More from the first day of Russia's invasion for Rumen Radev, the culprit is not guilty, and the war is as if some natural phenomenon - like rain with thunder, poured over Ukraine. Comment from Veselin Stoynev:
The President of the Republic Rumen Radev, Supreme Commander of a NATO state and NATO General, went on a very urgent visit to Hungary and Switzerland, while Sofia is hosting the NATO Parliamentary Assembly - a key international event for our country for the last few years. Radev explained that he did not flee Bulgaria because his visits were arranged long before the Assembly was scheduled - although it is clear to non-diplomats that even if that were the case, there would be no problem with such visits being postponed by a few weeks or months. (At the same time, French President Emmanuel Macron made the first official state visit by a French president to Germany in 24 years - and the relations between these two countries are nevertheless key not only for themselves, but also for the whole of Europe, especially in today's tense geopolitical And Radev's predecessor - Rosen Plevneliev, made several visits to Hungary during his term, during which he received the highest state award). On top of all that, President Radev, declaring himself to be an uncompromising defender of Bulgarian interests vis-a-vis North Macedonia, never said whether during his so important meeting with Viktor Orbán he raised the question of why for years he sheltered the four-times convicted former Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski and why close to he oligarchs support Skopje media spreading anti-Bulgarian propaganda.
One among strangers, one among one's own
In fact, Rumen Radev would not feel comfortable meeting in Sofia with the Secretary General of the Alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, and being the first in rank to host the representatives of the parliaments of the 32 allied countries of the pact. Not simply because he would be received by them with more than cool diplomatic courtesy as a well-known Russophile NATO member. Much more in place - and as if according to his destiny, he felt himself in Budapest with the most ardent Putinophile in the European Union - Viktor Orbán, from where he once again declared his peace-making creed about the war in Ukraine. By trying to pay him off at the expense of Switzerland's diplomatic household after his meeting with President Viola Amherd - even though the perpetrator of the war will not come to the peace summit next month in Bern, so that peacemaking can have an addressee at all.< /p>
Almost at the time of President Radev's uncancelled trip, Spanish King Felipe VI personally welcomed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the runway at Madrid airport, and Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez signed an agreement with him on military aid to Kiev for over 1 billion euros. The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Oleksandr Sirsky, announced that France is sending military instructors to Ukrainian territory. And the NATO Assembly in Sofia voted a declaration that supports Ukraine in its internationally recognized right to defend itself - and to victory, by recommending the lifting of restrictions on striking legitimate targets on Russian territory with those received from NATO and partner countries her weapons.
The document from the Sofia Pact Assembly is historic, although this body does not make actual decisions, especially about what weapons to use where. But it expresses broadly legitimate political will on the basis of the vote of the representatives of the parliaments of the member countries. And this is an important encouragement to the sovereign countries of the pact that are supporting Ukraine militarily, because the Russian army is advancing menacingly and bombing Ukrainian cities from its territory, without the Ukrainian army being able to counter, hitting the sources of the strikes on the territory of the aggressor with weapons provided to it by the West - precisely because of the restriction that they can only be used on one's own land.
One thing cannot be denied: the Bulgarian president stands like Gyuro Mihailov in his post. For him, since the first day of the invasion of Russia, the culprit is not guilty, and the war is as if a natural phenomenon - like rain with thunder, poured over Ukraine. And therefore peace can be achieved if the Ukrainians agree to hand over territory and population as far as it has rained and thundered. However, he has to come up with new arguments after the scare that we will send troops was denied by Stoltenberg ("NATO, we are not part of the conflict and we don't want to be, but we help because we want Ukraine to win, and the other our task is to avoid the conflict going outside of Ukraine and turning it into a full-scale war", as well as from acting Prime Minister Glavchev ("The topic of sending Bulgarian soldiers to Ukraine - for me, this is a typical example of a hybrid attack and disinformation. Never no such topic has been discussed in the "NATO"“ format).
They were holding a child's gun, and he?
Radev's new argument is that if a country allows its weapons to be struck on Russian territory, then it becomes a target for retaliatory Russian strikes, as Moscow warned. And all the countries of the pact will be involved in one way or another in a war, because according to Article 5 of the NATO treaty, an attack on one member is an attack on all. The instilling of fear of war (again not problematizing Russia's "right to retaliate") Radev colors with the argument that the politicians who make such decisions were "holding only a child's pistol" in their hand. and they would probably go into hiding in war - so they would first go through at least a month of intensive military training before risking other people's lives. However, the President himself, who is an undisputed military professional, does not touch the equally reasonable question of whether, if Bulgaria were to suffer the fate of the Ukraine, he would not follow the example of his illustrious French colleague, Marshal Petain, in 1940, by raising the white flag and leading puppet state.
However, the paradox is that even today's government, which is too weak in terms of authority and capacity, turns out to be strong in this case because it was not issued by the president. The constitutional changes to caretaker governments are proving to be working, and Radev himself has admitted that the cabinet will decide who goes to the summit in Bern. If the president broadcast the official office, he would certainly be the Bulgarian participant in the forum, as was the case in similar cases before. However, Radev no longer has any serious levers of power to change the country's foreign policy course, and the Euro-Atlantic majority is present despite the dissolution of the "assembly". Which is equivalent to new Bulgarian aid to Ukraine and a Bulgarian contribution to Euro-Atlantic unity.
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This comment expresses the personal opinion of the author and may not coincide with the positions of the Bulgarian editorial office and DV as a whole.