The protests in Bulgaria are targeting to bring Vazrazhdane party behind the rallies into the parliament.
President Radev’s involvement in this operation by the Kremlin threatens NATO’s regional security and stability.
On July 9, the Bulgarian President Rumen Radev’s administration was searched as part of the investigation in two unrelated cases of corruption and divulging state secrets. The police have detained presidential security advisor Iliya Milushev and anti-corruption commissioner Plamen Uzunov for questioning.
The organizer of the protests, the chairman of the Revival party, Kostadin Kostadinov, claimed the economic situation in the country escalated out of control over the coronavirus epidemic and the government was unable to protect the people. He accused the National Operational Headquarters to combat coronaviral spread of causing needless stress, psychosis, fear and panic in the population.
The Vazrazhdane party pushes Bulgaria for moving out of the European Union and NATO and refocusing the foreign policy towards Russia.
All pro-Kremlin parties in Europe feature such tasks in their program narratives. The party was founded in August 2014, amid the boost in creating Russia controlled political projects in Europe and subversive operations by Russian intelligence in NATO countries after Crimea’s annexation and the outbreak of war in Donbas that triggered the Western sanctions against the Kremlin. Kostadinov takes part in Rossotrudnichestvo’s activities, a front for Russia’s foreign intelligence.
Protests clamoring against Boyko Borisov, the conservative chairman of Bulgaria’s Council of Ministers, escalated into clashes with the police in Sofia. Agents provocateurs inciting violence against the police were seen among the protesters, Anton Zlatanov, the Sofia Police Department deputy director said.
The demonstrators voice a complaint over the authorities not having helped them during the state of emergency and condemning them to bankruptcy, famine and poverty.
lansinginstitute.org analysts and the U.S. intelligence community have previously stated that Russian and Chinese intelligence services are using the COVID-19 case to advance the political agenda.
In March this year, the Sofia Prosecutor’s Office placed the leader of the Revival political party Kostadin Kostadinov under criminal investigation for spreading coronavirus fakes, in line with Russia’s information campaigns in Europe to sabotage social stability and boost distrust in government action.
Anti-epidemic measures “are not introduced for the greater public good” and are “propaganda to divert attention”, Kostadinov said in televised comments. He also argued the State Reserve and Military Temporary Reserves had everything at warehouses just on paper, but “there is nothing in reality – everything has been stolen, eaten.”
In early 2020, the Revival movement, violating the lockdown, mounted a protest against the emergency regime and the government. The radicals made an attempt to break into the parliament. The Bulgarian police detained eight people, one of whom was seized with a knife, another – marijuana, the third was subject to an arrest warrant for criminal offenses.
The Revival party is not represented at the National Assembly. Therefore, organizing the protests, followed by a change of government and parliamentary re-elections, might be targeting to bring a pro-Russian party to the Bulgarian parliament.
On July 15, the Russophilic Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) submitted a vote of no confidence in the government accused of corruption to the parliament, and Bulgaria’s President Rumen Radev called on the government and chief prosecutor to step down to “restart and modernize” the country. In 2016 presidential elections, the party supported the independent candidate Rumen Radev. Thus, the BSP acts in line with Bulgaria’s President.
In his speech after the presidential oath at the National Assembly, Radev particularly expressed his hope to revive the dialogue with Russia. He linked the prospect of surmounting the downfall of NATO-Russia relations with the elections in the U.S. “and the new political environment in the world”, thus repeating the Kremlin’s narrative.
President Radev said in February that the government had lost his confidence as it was not serving the citizens’ interests and was driving at the collapse of statehood. Prior to that, the prosecutor’s office had appealed to the constitutional court to interpret the article of the basic law as for the president’s the immunity. Then the department reported that with a high degree of probability it had found the data indicating Radev’s involvement in criminal activity. Radev’s fast tracking in line with the pro-Russian Revival party might stem from his attempts to divert attention from the investigation on his involvement in corruption ties, as well as ties with Kremlin’s financial groups.
Since the second half of 2019, Bulgarian counterintelligence has stepped to uncover the Russian spy network in the country. Nikolai Malinov, chairman of the Bulgarian movement “Russophiles”, and the former secretary of “Russophiles” Yuri Borisov, were detained as part of the espionage case. As a result, Bulgaria’s State National Security Agency imposed a 10-year travel ban on Russian billionaire Konstantin Malofeev, who finances the operations of Russian military intelligence, the GRU. He was charged with the supervision and financial support for the pro-Russian group “Russolophiles” in Bulgaria.
On January 26, two Russian diplomats left Bulgaria over suspicions of espionage. One of them gathered information on the election mechanisms in Bulgaria, the other – intelligence on country’s energy and energy security, that was subsequently sent to Russia’s intelligence service, the Bulgarian prosecutor’s office reported.
We believe the intelligence tasks as for the election mechanisms are directly linked to the current protests in the country and are targeting to shape the election results and look for the opportunities to tip them after the government resigns and the parliament breaks up. The Kremlin is clearly considering possibility to speed up the parliamentary elections scheduled for May 2021 by organizing an early dissolution of the People’s Assembly.
Bulgaria is one of the vulnerable NATO countries to Russian subversion. Therefore, the statement of our embassy in Bulgaria, siding with the opposition, is doubtful. The rise to power by pro-Russian forces in Bulgaria, a strategically vital state in the Black Sea region, will weaken security in the region of strategic significance and crack down on NATO. We will have to seek ways to mitigate risks, pulling Sofia out of the system of sensitive information and intelligence data sharing under such scenario.
