© Julia Lazarova
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No one expected such a rapid and massive attack, with so many casualties. 1/3 of the Ukrainian army was destroyed. “We have a few days to see that Ukraine has fallen,” said Prime Minister Kirill Petkov of Brussels, who is attending meetings with European leaders on Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also joined the conversation yesterday. with the words: “I don’t know if I will see you again”, and it is frightening for the Prime Minister that “this person I am talking to and asking for support may not be alive in 48 hours”.
The Prime Minister said that he was steadfast and that Bulgaria was one of the brave enough countries in the dialogue on how severe the sanctions against Russia should be. He continues, and restrictions on Vladimir Putin can be added to the decisions already taken (which Petkov supports), as well as the withdrawal of Russia from the SWIFT banking system. According to Petkov, it is important that sanctions be against those who make decisions in the country and those who support them, and not against ordinary citizens.
“Sanctions will be a fact. If I were a Russian business, I would not stand to watch a man, supposedly my leader, destroy the value of my company. The question here is what pain the Russian state’s internal immune system can endure. Russia’s economy It is very small, it is very small on the map of the world, it has oil, gas and weapons, it looks like a gas station with missiles, but at the moment military action is impossible, Putin said he would use nuclear intervention “No matter what happens in Ukraine, NATO armies stand and watch from the sidelines,” Petkov said.
According to him, Vladimir Putin should know that every action has a price, just as in the EU everyone works together and there can be no split.
“The only people talking to Moscow are Emanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz. Macron continues to hold talks asking Putin to stop. We all want de-escalation, but it’s one thing to want while we’re talking, it’s another to fire rockets. “Let us say ‘let’s talk’. Sanctions will not affect today, it will be a long process. This conflict will last a long time,” Petkov said.
He added that Europe would also work together against hybrid attacks.
“The wave is expected to be huge. There will be non-governmental organizations and political parties that will break this policy of Europe,” Petkov said.
“We are a NATO army” and a comment to Stefan Yanev
Petkov stressed that there will be no NATO-Russia military conflict, and whether Bulgaria will be strengthened as part of the alliance’s eastern flank will be known later today.
“We are a NATO army, there is no need to divide the troops into Bulgarian and NATO. We have shown where there are deficits, it is a question of optimizing the NATO system is where to fill in. This is a military strategy, not political. organization, not country by country, “Petkov said.
He reacted sharply against yesterday’s call by the Minister of Defense Stefan Yanev not to wave the map of the war.
“Nobody is waving anything here except rockets and shelling by the Russian Federation at an independent state. Some of the young boys in the Russian army did not know they were going to martial law, they thought they were going to training,” Petkov said. He added that young boys are dying because of a leader who sits at a long table and makes terribly wrong decisions.
We cannot afford measures against oil exports
Petkov discussed with the Prime Minister of Greece Kyriakos Mitsotakis the gas connection between the two countries to become a top priority, as Bulgaria must be ready with retaliatory sanctions from Russia. Petkov said he was angry that after 11 years of construction the connection was not ready. He has assurances from Lukoil that supplies to Bulgaria will not be with changed capacity. Our country has not supported measures against oil exports from Russia, as “we can not afford it.” It is also thought that the price of electricity will be divided by that of gas.
“These are not the refugees we are used to.”
The Prime Minister said that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has a headquarters, which is coordinated with ambassadors in order to carry out an effective evacuation operation of Bulgarians in Ukraine. He added that what is happening now in Europe is amazing, and reiterated that Bulgaria is ready to accept Ukrainian citizens.
“These are not the refugees we are used to. As the Austrian chancellor said, these are our relatives, our family. These are Europeans, intelligent, educated people, some of them are programmers. We, like everyone else, are ready to welcome them. “This is not the usual refugee wave of people with an unclear past. None of the European countries is worried about them,” Petkov said.
