Bulgaria’s President Rumen Radev urged the European Union to not let itself be sidelined by Russia and the US in potential peace talks over Ukraine.
In comments on Wednesday, Radev criticised the bloc’s leaders for encouraging Kyiv’s counteroffensive against Russia. While condemning Russia’s full-scale invasion, the president of the Balkan country has repeatedly called for a quick ceasefire and opposed providing weaponry to Ukraine.
“Will we allow Russia and the US to negotiate peace for Europe without Europe?,” Radev asked at a conference in Sofia on Wednesday, saying that Europe should insist on a “visible place” at the negotiating table. Russia now feels “much stronger,” he said, and it will be “enormously difficult to achieve peace.”
Radev is the most popular political figure in Bulgaria, which has been led by a series of unstable governments in recent years. Yet he’s faced criticism from political opponents for echoing the Kremlin’s stances.
Radev, who won two consecutive elections since 2016, campaigned on ending sanctions against Moscow for its annexation of Crimea and subsequent full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Since then, the Bulgarian leader has echoed calls from fellow eastern European leaders to maintain ties with the Kremlin.
“Why, instead of building solid defense lines to preserve its potential and territory, was Ukraine encouraged by many leaders to launch a counteroffensive with the utopian assurance of defeating Russia?” asked Radev at the conference in the Bulgarian capital, calling for leaders to “take responsibility” for the outcome.
“Why have we been constantly convinced that the collapse of the Russian economy is in a matter of months?” he asked, pointing to Ukraine’s loss of manpower and Europe’s lagging competitiveness as reasons for pessimism.
In order to avoid Europe’s future being dictated by other powers, it is time for the bloc’s leaders to “switch off the autopilot and take control” into their own hands, said Radev, a US-trained former air force commander.