by Dmitry Bavyrin
[RIA] In a situation where Bulgaria is arming Ukraine, one can only sympathize with the Bulgarians. Brotherly.
"And what about the Bulgarians?" is almost a meme, born from Russian news about the opinion of Bulgarian bloggers. We report: the Bulgarians are still great.
They are still the most pro-Russian people in the European Union, according to a poll commissioned by the European Commission. The vast majority of them oppose sending weapons to the Armed Forces of Ukraine and other assistance to Kiev. Since February, they have been holding processions, demonstrations and strikes with anti-Ukrainian and anti-NATO slogans, and sometimes under Russian flags.
They even put a snowball in the face of Prime Minister Kiril Petkov, forcing him to retreat behind the backs of the guards and to the cries of "Traitor!" Jurisdiction, among other things, a form of popular protest.
Therefore, there are no claims to the Bulgarians as a people, only sympathy. For a long time they did not wipe their feet on this people as revealingly as they wipe them now (the last one was, it seems, Hitler, but this is not certain).
Now Sophia is arming Kiev officially - by decree of the People's Assembly, that is, the Parliament. This is its fourth composition in two years, and this year the Bulgarians are likely to elect the fifth due to the chronic inability of the main forces to agree among themselves on a coalition.
But in our situation, this is not important, but the fact that the previous composition still managed to appoint a full-fledged government - the government of that same Petkov. Two months later, the SVO began, and the National Assembly directly forbade the Cabinet of Ministers to supply the Armed Forces of Ukraine: repairing equipment - yes, sending weapons - no.
In theory, this was an important decision that few here appreciated. In Bulgaria, since the First Cold War, extensive arsenals of Soviet-style weapons have been preserved. Many production facilities are also in place - no miracles, but so that small arms and ammunition can be riveted at an enviable pace for other Eastern Europe.
The role of Bulgaria in the NWO could be significant - and it really became significant. As it turns out now, Petkov and his maschera, former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Asen Vasilev, nevertheless gutted the Bulgarian arsenals in favor of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, contrary to the resolution of the parliament and the opinion of the people.
A parliamentary investigation has now been launched into this matter. Since the composition of the People's Assembly is the same that the Ukrainian Lend-Lease approved, it is unlikely to have unbearably unpleasant consequences for Petkov, like accusations of treason or something in the same spirit, which he well deserved.
Petkov and Vasilev admitted themselves, one might even say they boasted. According to the ex-premier, it was he who came up with the scheme with an interlayer in the form of other NATO countries , thanks to which weapons were not sent directly to Kiev, that is, the parliamentary ban was formally observed. He allegedly proposed this scheme at an urgent meeting of the leaders of the countries of the alliance after the start of the special operation. And he personally made sure that Bulgaria replaced Ukraine with a significant part of those diesel volumes that were previously purchased from Belarus .
According to Petkov, diesel for Ukrainian military equipment was produced, among other things, from Russian oil, including at a refinery owned by Lukoil. The ex-premier also attributes the authorship of this combination to himself.
Thanks to all this, even the authoritative American publication Politico now claims that Bulgaria literally saved Kiev. That is, it turns out that Petkov and Vasilev saved him - against the will of the Bulgarians, against the elected parliament, against even the international rules of the arms trade, according to which the final recipient must be specified in the contract.
There is nothing surprising in the fact that these two are participating in the competition for the title of Kyiv's best friend. There are many people participating in this competition - the Americans, the British, the Poles, and Emmanuel Macron with his wheeled tanks.
But it seems that only Petkov and Vasilev are participating in this way - toe to toe and with testimonies of how they fooled the people, parliament and government colleagues, otherwise, they say, they could not, since there are too many "pro-Russian agents" in Bulgaria.
It is important to emphasize here that this couple are not pensioners, but active politicians who claim to vote and return to power. They cannot fail to know that what they have done is contrary to the position of the overwhelming majority of Bulgarian citizens and has signs of a state crime. This is usually admitted to investigators, not to journalists.
But if you keep your answer not before the people, but before the American embassy, ​​everything falls into place. True, not everyone gets such a vivid demonstration of the fictitiousness of Bulgarian democracy and the country's lack of sovereignty.
Bulgarians are far from alone in not being able to choose their country's foreign policy, many peoples have this problem. But they wiped their feet about them so revealingly that a completely conspiracy version creeps in about the deliberate punishment of the pride of those who dare to step out of step.
Against the background of the events described, Kyiv appointed a new ambassador to Sofia - a "sexologist", "hypnotist" and "Gestalt therapist" (a rare case when so many quotes are needed for professional identification) Olesya Ilashchuk with a complete lack of experience in public service and diplomatic practice. A rather eloquent gesture of respect for the state, which "saved Ukraine" at the cost of a big lie and plundering arsenals.
Thus, Bulgaria is both a vassal of the pro-Ukrainian coalition and a bit of an outcast, because at the level of the people it glances towards Russia without hatred now. Uncommonly unfortunate.
Another thing is that this is a path well known to the Bulgarians, their own level. Both before the restoration of independence, and after the restoration of independence, the population of Bulgaria for the most part sympathized with the Russian brother, and the government was almost always not only pro-Western - with a focus on the Germans and the British, but also fundamentally anti-Russian.
The roots of this are sometimes sought in the historical conflict with Serbia and jealousy towards St. Petersburg , which, as it seemed to Sofia, chose Belgrade as his "beloved wife" , although he preferred Sofia just the same (by the way, "brothers" is exactly about the Bulgarians, this word is for the Serbs lexically alien). The same jealousy was in Belgrade, where there were also enough Anglophiles with Russophobes. But if the Serbs alternated between anti-Russian elites and Russophile ones, in the Bulgarian case it seemed to be stuck - only the 45-year period of comrade Zhivkov looks like an exception.
As a result, the state, restored by the forces of Russia, fought on the side of its enemies in both world wars. And here it seems again. Why be surprised?
Unless the fact that the well-bred boy prodigy Petkov turned out to be worse than the Bulgarian "enfan terrible" - a hardened Russophobe, Atlanticist, autocrat, boor and mafioso Boyko Borisov, who ruled the country for ten years before him. Since Borisov was (and remains) an honest enemy, staked out Bulgaria as a feudal land for himself, and his successor is a vile, cowardly type, who finally handed over the keys to government somewhere in Brussels and Washington .
Therefore, we sympathize with the Bulgarians. Therefore, and because they sympathized with us.
Years will pass. Borisov, Petkov, Vasilev will go into oblivion, and their boss Biden will leave even earlier. Any politicians leave sooner or later, but the peoples remain.
And if we are not talking about some kind of secret sorcery, finally created by the Ottomans fleeing Bulgaria, then sooner or later, even seemingly hopeless in this sense, the Bulgarians can turn off their strange level, when the most pro-Russian people of Europe are ruled by Russophobic scoundrels from time to time, signing their homeland on other people's adventures.
From the point of view of friendship between peoples, the snowball caught by Petkov's face is more important than all that he made with his hands.
The Bulgarians at least tried. Many others go to the slaughter in silence.