First published in Deník N.
When the new Bulgarian defence minister Dimitar Stoyanov recently announced that his country would no longer supply weapons to Ukraine, some Bulgarians experienced déjà vu.
In the months immediately after the start of Russia’s full-scale attack on Ukraine in 2022, Bulgarian politicians insisted they had not sent Kyiv “a single bullet produced in Bulgaria”.
In reality, however, they increased exports to intermediaries such as the Czech Republic, Poland and Romania, which then supplied the ammunition to Kyiv.
This approach allowed the then Bulgarian coalition government to retain the support of one of its pro-Russian coalition parties.
