{"id":906801,"date":"2026-04-20T12:25:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T12:25:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/906801\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T12:25:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T12:25:16","slug":"von-der-leyen-costa-congratulate-russia-aligned-radev-on-bulgaria-election-win-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/906801\/","title":{"rendered":"Von der Leyen, Costa congratulate Russia-aligned Radev on Bulgaria election win \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

Russia-aligned Radev, a former fighter pilot, scored a landslide win in Bulgaria\u2019s\u00a0eighth election in five years<\/a>. During his campaign, Radev accused rival parties of enabling an oligarch-dominated mafia state. He stepped down as president earlier this year<\/a> to run for prime minister.<\/p>\n

Radev has encouraged Ukraine to sue for peace, does not support sending arms to Kyiv and says his insistence that Crimea is \u201cRussian\u201d simply reflects a strategic reality.\u00a0<\/p>\n

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said in a brief X post<\/a> he\u2019d \u201clook forward to continued cooperation on shared security challenges\u201d with Radev.<\/p>\n

In Brussels, reactions from some in the center-right European People\u2019s Party and center-left Socialists and Democrats groups were forthright. Czech conservative MEP Tom\u00e1\u0161 Zdechovsk\u00fd said, \u201cBulgaria has sent a clear \u2014 and deeply concerning \u2014 signal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRumen Radev, a politician openly critical of support for Ukraine and long seen as sympathetic to Russia, appears to have secured a parliamentary majority. This is no longer just an election result \u2014 it is a serious geopolitical shift,\u201d he wrote on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Austrian Social Democratic MEP Andreas Schieder said, \u201cWith Radev, the next Putin friend will likely enter the Council, and Orb\u00e1n is thus merely passing the baton,\u201d describing<\/a> Radev\u2019s election as a \u201csetback for Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russia-aligned Radev, a former fighter pilot, scored a landslide win in Bulgaria\u2019s\u00a0eighth election in five years. During his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":906802,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[13489,33,28284,41942,332,335],"class_list":{"0":"post-906801","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-bulgaria","9":"tag-elections","10":"tag-elections-in-europe","11":"tag-rumen-radev","12":"tag-russia","13":"tag-war-in-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116437026636862387","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=906801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/906802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=906801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=906801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=906801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}