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
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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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.
Ukrainian drones struck an oil depot near Stavropol and set fire to the port that ferries Russian fuel and ammunition into occupied Crimea overnight on 13 July, according to monitoring channels. It was the second depot hit in the same locality in four days. Russia's local authorities confirmed the fire.
Fuel keeps Russia's army in the occupied south running. Ukraine has spent months taking apart the chain that carries it — the refineries, the depots, the rail ferries, the t
Ukrainian drones struck an oil depot near Stavropol and set fire to the port that ferries Russian fuel and ammunition into occupied Crimea overnight on 13 July, according to monitoring channels. It was the second depot hit in the same locality in four days. Russia's local authorities confirmed the fire.
Fuel keeps Russia's army in the occupied south running. Ukraine has spent months taking apart the chain that carries it — the refineries, the depots, the rail ferries, the tankers — while the gasoline shortage inside Russia spreads from one region to the next.
Two depots, four days, one kilometer apart
Drones hit the depot next to the railway in Vyazniki, near Stavropol, southern Russia, late at night, Russian news Telegram channel Astra reported after reviewing footage and eyewitness accounts. A powerful fire broke out. Ukrainian monitoring channel Exilenova+ showed it was still burning at 9 a.m. Ukrainian monitoring channel Supernova+ said at least two tanks caught fire. The blaze continued into the afternoon.
The site belongs to Lukoil-Yugnefteprodukt, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lukoil. It stores and ships gasoline, diesel, and other light petroleum products, and supplies Lukoil filling stations across Stavropol Krai and neighboring regions. The depot holds 17 large tanks, four medium ones, and 21 small vessels.
Ukrainian drones set a fuel depot burning in Russia's Stavropol Krai — again
Reservoirs caught fire at the oil depot in Mikhailovsk, a satellite city of Stavropol, after the overnight strike on 13 July, monitoring channels report.
Residents of Mykhailovsk — the town adjoining Vyazniki — and nearby settlements reported a series of powerful explosions. Fuel tanks then began exploding, spreading the fire.
Stavropol Krai governor Vladimir Vladimirov confirmed the drone raid on the "outskirts of Stavropol" and the fire in the industrial zone of Vyazniki. He claimed nobody was hurt. Authorities evacuated residents of the street next to the industrial zone because of the risk of further explosions.
A column of black smoke rises over the burning oil depot near Stavropol, Stavropol Krai, Russia, around noon of 13 July 2026. Photo: Exilenova+/Telegram
Drones already hit a depot in the same village on 9 July. That site, owned by Rosneft-Stavropolye, sits 1.2 km from the one burning now.
The port that keeps Crimea supplied
In Krasnodar Krai's Temryuk district, the regional operational headquarters reported a fire "on the territory of one of the enterprises." Ukrainian monitoring group Krymsky Veter identified the site from satellite imagery: the oil products transshipment complex and the railway station of the port of Kavkaz.
The terminal has a capacity of about 3 million tons a year. It moves crude and fuel oil from rail cars, road tankers, and ships, and holds a tank farm of roughly 100,000 cubic meters plus rail racks where fuel is drained from tank cars. Exilenova+ added that the tank farm itself was on fire.
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Ukraine hits 15 Russian vessels as drone blockade of Crimea spreads across Azov Sea
Port Kavkaz links Russia to occupied Crimea through the Kerch ferry crossing. Russia has used those ferries to push ammunition, weapons, and fuel onto the peninsula. Ukraine hit the port on 21 and 23 June, igniting its oil terminal. After the first of those strikes, Krasnodar authorities suspended ferry traffic and told truck drivers to reach Crimea by the land corridor instead.
NASA FIRMS satellite fire data for 13 July 2026 shows blazes around the Kerch Strait: fires at sea near occupied Kerch (green circles) and at Russia's Port Kavkaz on the far side of the strait (magenta circle). Map: NASA FIRMS
Russia's Defense Ministry claimed air defenses and electronic warfare "intercepted" 342 Ukrainian fixed-wing drones over 16 regions, including Moscow and Moscow Oblast, and over the Azov and Black seas.
The leaders of the EU's member states have agreed to keep their sanctions on Russia in place for a full year rather than the usual six months, according to Reuters and Euronews. The decision, taken at a Brussels summit on 18 June, marks the first time the bloc has stretched the rollover that long. Yet a pro-Russian Bulgarian PM is already threatening to block the EU's next round of measures.
Russia's full-scale war is in its fifth year, and the EU keeps adding sanctions fas
The leaders of the EU's member states have agreed to keep their sanctions on Russia in place for a full year rather than the usual six months, according to Reuters and Euronews. The decision, taken at a Brussels summit on 18 June, marks the first time the bloc has stretched the rollover that long. Yet a pro-Russian Bulgarian PM is already threatening to block the EU's next round of measures.
Russia's full-scale war is in its fifth year, and the EU keeps adding sanctions faster than it can enforce them against Moscow's evasion. The bloc's leverage rests not just on new lists but on holding 27 governments together.
A year instead of six months
The bloc's national leaders renewed the economic sanctions for 12 months at the Brussels summit on 18 June. The measures hit certain sectors of the Russian economy and had always been rolled over every six months. That short cycle handed any single member a regular chance to bargain or threaten a veto. The rollover is the first stretched to a full year. The 27 leaders also backed joint conclusions on Ukraine, the first such agreement since March 2025, when Hungary balked.
Bulgaria threatens the next package
Bulgaria's prime minister, Rumen Radev, vowed to veto the EU's next sanctions package on Russia. He said it could hurt Bulgaria's economy and pointed to the risk to Lukoil, the Russian oil company that runs the country's only refinery at Burgas. Radev wants Lukoil struck from the list. He also cited possible disruptions to Sofia Metro spare parts and fertilizer supplies. Reuters describes him as a pro-Russian eurosceptic who won April's parliamentary election.
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Objection over a Russian bishop
Radev also opposes sanctions on a bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church. He argued the war should not reach into religion after spreading to culture and sports.
"In what way have these sanctions so far stopped the war?" he asked.
Patriarch Kirill—the ROC leader—is a staunch supporter of Russia's war in Ukraine, while his church's infrastructure abroad often serves for Russian espionage activities.
Still, Radev said Bulgaria would not block the EU's broader decisions on Ukraine and backs its accession talks.
The packages behind the threat
The next round, the EU's 21st package, would bar Russian soldiers from the bloc and add 30 more tankers to its shadow-fleet blacklist, alongside new curbs on Russian banks and the defense industry. The EU has imposed 20 packages since it first sanctioned Russia in 2014 over Crimea, with the twentieth lifting the tanker list to 632 ships. Brussels gained room for the new measures after Hungary's government unblocked steps its predecessor had stalled. Days earlier, on 15 June, the EU expanded its list with 34 individuals and 47 entities.
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