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Reçu — 14 juillet 2026 ⏭
✇Euromaidan Press

Two months in office, three blows to Ukraine: Bulgaria’s premier stacks Coalition of the Willing exit on aid freeze and sanctions blocks

Par :Yuri Zoria
14 juillet 2026 à 07:48

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Bulgaria has pulled out of the Coalition of the Willing, the group of nations backing Ukraine against Russian aggression, Bloomberg reported. Pro-Russian Prime Minister Rumen Radev announced the exit on 14 July, a day after skipping the coalition's Paris summit. The move is the latest in a string of anti-Ukrainian steps Sofia has taken since Radev took office in May.

Europe's anti-Ukraine bench rotates rather than empties — Viktor Orbán, who plotted an anti-Kyiv axis inside the EU, lost power at the ballot box in April, but Radev now fills his seat alongside Andrej Babiš, who defunded Czechia's shell pipeline to Ukraine, Robert Fico, who still lays flowers at the Kremlin wall each May, and Poland's right-wing presidency, which feeds a memory war that has already cost Kyiv medals, MiGs, and goodwill — each turning another capital into a brake on Europe's support.

"Not prolonging it by military means"

Radev told reporters on 14 July that Bulgaria rejects the coalition's core purpose.

"We're not participating in a coalition that insists on continuing financial and military aid to Ukraine. The solution to this conflict is not in prolonging it by military means, but in a strong diplomatic mission that will finally put an end to the escalation," he stated.

Bulgaria attended previous coalition meetings but sent no representative to the Paris gathering. The withdrawal distances the Balkan country further from the EU majority standing behind Kyiv. Radev has repeatedly rejected accusations of siding with Russia, claiming he favors "pragmatic" relations with the Kremlin.

A pattern two months in the making

The coalition exit caps a rapid reversal of Bulgarian policy. Radev, a former president who called occupied Crimea Russian, became Prime Minister in May after his party won the country's eighth election in five years. He promptly halted government-supplied military aid to Kyiv, though commercial arms sales continue.

That freeze carries weight because of what Bulgaria makes. The country ranks among the EU's top producers of Soviet-standard ammunition — the shells that proved decisive for Ukraine's defense in the war's opening stages.
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Radev has also promised to block EU sanctions moves against two prominent Russians: Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, and oligarch Vagit Alekperov, the founder of oil giant Lukoil.

Leaders of Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and Britain agreed in Paris on 13 July to create an integrated anti-ballistic defense coalition together with Ukraine.
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