Bulgarians took revenge on the authorities for Russia

The sharply anti-Russian policy of Bulgarian Prime Minister Kirill Petkov during the days of the special operation of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in Ukraine caused an equally unprecedented sharp reaction of Bulgarian society. The head of government was literally chased from the podium with snowballs amid whistling, hooting and shouts of "NATO - out!". What is going on in the usually anti-Russian Bulgaria?

"And what are the Bulgarians?" This phrase is a relatively recent meme of the near-political Runet. It was generated by the practice of one of the news agencies, where a specific type of content was created - in fact, absolutely empty, but quite popular with readers.

The recipe is as follows: take an article about Russia on the website of any foreign media, look at the comments under the article (including from anonymous or even bots), choose the ones you need, translate into Russian, put the news with the headline "the British were surprised ...", "the French were outraged ..." or "the Chinese admired ..." (something Russian). Bulgarians for some reason perform in this genre especially often, perhaps because the Bulgarian media write about a wider range of Russian topics than foreign policy, but this is only a hypothesis.

The informational value of such "news" is doubtful, but this time the Bulgarians really learned – booed and swore at their Prime Minister Kirill Petkov, finally effectively shoving a snowball into him.

It was on Shipka Mountain, in a ten-degree frost. Specifically, at the so-called monument to Freedom, erected with the money collected by the Bulgarian people in honor of the predominantly Russian soldiers who fell during the defense of the pass from the Ottomans. The memorial is impressive, the place is salted (when air travel resumes, it's worth a trip), on the Day of liberation from the Ottoman yoke, solemn events are held there almost every year.

In other words, Bulgarians celebrate a holiday at Shipka Pass, entirely dedicated to the fact that Russia violated the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire in order to return to the Orthodox Bulgarians their relatively ancient statehood by European standards (from the VII century).

This comes into emotional contradiction with the fact that the reaction of official Sofia to the "violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine" has become one of the sharpest on the planet.

This is far from the only example, and the most scandalous of all is the dismissal of Defense Minister Stefan Yanev from the government. He angered Petkov by suggesting aloud to abandon emotions and so far call the special operation of the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine a special operation (not a war), and besides, he opposed the deployment of an additional contingent from other NATO countries in Bulgaria - because he also opposed it earlier, and now he sees no benefit from inflaming the situation.

Yanev of Russia is not a matchmaker and not a brother. He is a NATO brigadier general who worked closely with the Pentagon and trained in the United States. As part of his "special opinion", the Defense Minister appealed not to the residual Russophilia of Bulgarian society, which has been experiencing Russophobic treatment since 2009, but to the national interests of the country.

To paraphrase, it will be like this: when the allies collectively decide to impose sanctions– we will, but to run ahead of the locomotive and complicate relations with Russia at the national level at such a crucial moment in history - well, why?

However, Prime Minister Petkov does not think this way, he thinks differently, as young Eastern European politicians who graduated from Harvard and succeeded in business usually think. His reaction to the special operation of the Russian Federation was predictable, but it was too much, as when playing blackjack: there should have been less demonstrative desire to harm Russia, Petkov, as prime minister, was expected to do this, among other things.

The active pumping of Bulgarians with Russophobia since 2009 has been carried out by the forces of Prime Minister Boyko Borisov – a man whom too many in the country have hated for 12 years of rule and mostly for the cause. Despite the fact that Borisov's regime was the least democratic in the EU (which, however, is a matter of taste – another would call Orban's Hungary or Kaczynski's Poland), and this greatly affected freedom of speech and election integrity, in the end he lost the election so that he could not claim the prime minister's chair. But the opposition also failed.

Then the same General Yanev became the technical head of the government until the new parliamentary elections (the third in a year and a half), and the non-partisan Petkov in his cabinet was responsible for the economy. In a few months, the forty-year-old minister managed to please the people first of all by offering to put aside political disputes, focusing all his efforts on practical work to solve socio-economic problems.

Bulgarians, who had a lot of such problems, liked the idea, especially since they were terribly tired of swearing on ideological and historical topics during Borisov's premiership. So Petkov's newborn party with the telling name "We Continue the Changes" won the elections, and then gathered a coalition of several quite different forces - from devoutly pro-European liberals to socialists loyal to Russia.

The media sympathizing with Petkov (and there were few of them; most of the Bulgarian media sphere is controlled by oligarchs close to Borisov) also rejoiced at the idea of putting aside disagreements for the sake of fighting corruption and for the material benefit of the people. But after a frankly excessive reaction to the special operation of the Russian Federation and the dismissal of Yanov (who until recently, we recall, was Petkov's boss himself), it can be stated that this idea is dead.

Blind adherence not so much to the requirements as to hints from Washington prevailed over a rational approach to the interests of Bulgaria. And this is not our thought, but Yaneva's, which he outlined in his statement to the media after his resignation.

So it turned out that there may be fundamental differences in the approach of a NATO general who studied in the United States and a talented economist who also studied in the United States, and how a progressive economist can act from the position of a "hawk".

We should add that events at Shipka traditionally attract Bulgarian Russophiles (for example, the Renaissance movement), and Russophiles are on their nerves right now. After the start of the special operation of the Russian Federation, monuments to Russian and Soviet soldiers in Bulgaria began to be desecrated not at night, but openly. A group of Ukrainians or radical activists approaches and paints the memorial with insults against Russia.

As a result, it is not surprising that the prime minister was greeted with whistles and that his speech was interrupted by shouts like "resign" and "traitor"." It even came to chanting personal insults, and ended with a well-aimed snowball, after which Petkov, taken aback, retreated surrounded by guards.

It remains to be hoped that this incident will be traumatic for him, in the sense that it will be remembered, after which the prime minister will correct his intention to follow in Borisov's footsteps. (With all of the above, Petkov seems to be an adequate and even sympathetic person in his own way, and what is happening now can be attributed to his political inexperience.) He will not correct it in the sense that he will go over to the side of Russia, this is clearly not his case (the number of Russophiles in Bulgarian society, in principle, should not be exaggerated – the attitude towards us there is complicated). But he will understand what "overkill" is and that it is not necessary to spit against the wind.

And to those Bulgarians, thanks to whom Russian flags were flying on Shipka, Sofia and other cities of the country in honor of the holiday (and there were a lot of them) - thank them. Thank you. This is really important for us now.

Dmitry Bavyrin