Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said that he knows Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev well and suggested that the Bulgarian leader could face pressure to change his position after taking office.
“I know the Prime Minister of Bulgaria Rumen Radev well. He appeared in the elections with the slogan of protecting national interests, and not of subordination to the EU bureaucracy,” Lavrov said in an interview with Russian state television VGTRK.
Lavrov said there were examples of politicians who campaigned on promises to defend national interests but adopted different positions once they came to power. “Some manage to defend their principled beliefs with which they went to the elections. Others succumb to pressure,” he said.
The comments came after recent statements by Yuri Pilipson, director of the Second European Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, who said Bulgaria's rhetoric toward Russia had become more restrained and rational since Radev's government took office.
Pilipson said that, while citing Bulgarian national interests, Sofia had made what Moscow considers reasonable calls for the European Union to reconsider its policy toward Russia. He also criticized the so-called Coalition of the Willing, a group of countries coordinating support for Ukraine, describing it as a group of “belligerent instigators.”
