site.btaContinue the Change Floor Leader Denkov Questions Government’s Ukraine Arms Policy

Continue the Change Floor Leader Nikolay Denkov will ask Prime Minister Rumen Radev to clarify Bulgaria’s position on military aid to Ukraine, Denkov said on Tuesday. He was reacting to Minister of Defence Dimitar Stoyanov’s comments that the government did not plan further weapons supplies.

Denkov said he was submitting a parliamentary question to Prime Minister Rumen Radev seeking clarification of the Bulgarian government’s exact position, after Stoyanov said earlier Tuesday that the government had no plans to send more weapons to the Ukrainian army. Stoyanov said it was time to sit down at the negotiating table and seek a just peace.

“And if Bulgaria is attacked by an aggressor, should we surrender immediately so that there can be a just and sustainable peace?” Denkov wrote.

Denkov said that two days earlier, Foreign Affairs Minister Velislava Petrova-Chamova had called for effective military support for Ukraine, combined with economic sanctions against Russia and diplomacy. The remarks came in an interview with a French media outlet that was also widely cited in Bulgaria, Denkov added.

On Tuesday, Stoyanov told Bulgarian journalists that Bulgaria was halting arms supplies to Ukraine. The news was immediately picked up by international media, Denkov wrote.

If this is a strategy to please everyone, it is not working. If government ministers are not talking to each other, that is even worse, Denkov said.

GERB and Democratic Bulgaria (DB) also expressed positions earlier on Tuesday.

The decision on military aid to Ukraine is not a decision about Ukraine. It is a decision about Bulgaria’s place in Europe over the next twenty years, GERB said.

Halting military aid to Ukraine is not merely a foreign-policy turn. It is a strategic mistake that directly affects Bulgaria’s security, Democratic Bulgaria (DB) MP Ivaylo Mirchev wrote.