site.btaBulgarian President Deplores Europe’s "Exclusion" from Ukraine Talks Amid “Lack of Leadership”

Bulgarian President Iliana Iotova said on Tuesday that Europe has been excluded from the negotiations on Ukraine for months. “The most worrying development is that for months now Europe has been excluded from the negotiation process on Ukraine. This reflects a lack of leadership, a lack of position, and circumvention,” Iotova told journalists in Sofia in a comment marking four years since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine.

The President attended the annual conference of Bulgaria’s Chief of Defence, which focused on the development of the country’s Armed Forces from the perspective of tasks in a national and Allied format. The conference began with a closed-door presentation of the Analysis of the Status and Readiness of the Armed Forces in 2025.

Iotova told the media: “I believe that even under a caretaker government, our ministers and the prime minister must be among the voices in Europe working to restore the Union’s leadership role to where it belongs.” She was responding to a journalist’s question about whether Europe continues to stand firmly behind Ukraine, after two countries vetoed funds promised to Kyiv during a meeting of foreign ministers. “Do not forget that one of those two countries is holding elections,” she added, suggesting that some of the arguments behind the veto were political.

“I do not consider this to be special operations, but a war that has been raging for four years, at the cost of thousands of lives on both sides. I strongly believe there will be progress in peace negotiations, a ceasefire and a return to normality, with the participation of all EU countries, including our own, in the reconstruction of Ukraine. Our position, together with that of [former] President Radev, has been clear – we speak of aggression and an aggressor,” Iotova added.