- 3 ore fa
Non mi interessa sostenere la Russia: il premier bulgaro respinge l'etichetta filorussa
Il premier bulgaro è tra i principali leader UE che chiedono negoziati con Mosca sulla guerra in Ucraina, guadagnandosi l’etichetta filorussa.
ALTRE INFORMAZIONI : http://it.euronews.com/2026/10/01/non-mi-interessa-sostenere-la-russia-il-premier-bulgaro-respinge-letichetta-filorussa
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Il premier bulgaro è tra i principali leader UE che chiedono negoziati con Mosca sulla guerra in Ucraina, guadagnandosi l’etichetta filorussa.
ALTRE INFORMAZIONI : http://it.euronews.com/2026/10/01/non-mi-interessa-sostenere-la-russia-il-premier-bulgaro-respinge-letichetta-filorussa
Abbonati, euronews è disponibile in 12 lingue.
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NovitàTrascrizione
00:08Thank you Prime Minister, thank you very much.
00:10Much has been said about you in Brussels,
00:12but we have not really heard that much from you in terms of
00:16who you really are, your perspectives, your views.
00:19You know, and it's not a secret, and I say this with all due respect,
00:21in Brussels there was a clear conversation about a Prime Minister
00:25that perhaps was going to break the European consensus around
00:29Ukraine that would play into the hands of Russia.
00:32You said at the time that was a parody, a simplification of your views,
00:36and it is clear you won an election with a landslide.
00:39When I look at the war, Ukraine-Russia, what is the assessment that you make,
00:43and what is the security assessment that you see from your perspective
00:46coming from Bulgaria?
00:47I believe that this war has challenged not only our security architecture,
00:55it challenged our industrial base.
00:58It challenged our unity, it challenged our capability,
01:02but most of all, the war in Ukraine challenged our critical thinking
01:08and realistic approach.
01:10It challenged most of all our ability to design feasible political objectives
01:18and to translate them into a sound military strategy
01:21and to define a desire, the desired end state, and to define the victory.
01:29Most of all, how to define the road towards this victory
01:34and all the circumstances we need to pave down to achieve peace,
01:41finally to achieve peace.
01:42Because this is the struggle very often inside of myself,
01:48talking about military and political analysis and approach to the war,
01:54to the conflict, to the overall global situation on the security landscape.
01:58I don't want to put words in your mouth,
02:00but what you're saying is the fact that you question that there is,
02:04well, no strategy to victory,
02:06saying victory and peace without a plan is not going to work.
02:08That meant that you were labeled pro-Russia?
02:11Is that what you're saying?
02:12It is typical, and it is very sad,
02:14that if you divert from the political mainstream,
02:19you are labeled immediately being a pro-Russian.
02:23This is not the reality.
02:25And you say you're not.
02:25I don't care about supporting Russia.
02:30I care about realistic approach and to finally find the road to peace as soon as possible.
02:37Because this war of attrition is a strong challenge for the peace in global perspective.
02:46It is a growing risk.
02:48This war drains our social and economic systems almost every day.
02:54So we need to find the peace, the road to peace as soon as possible.
02:58And we need to finally achieve a balance between military, economic, and diplomatic instruments.
03:06Because I don't see the right balance yet.
03:09And our main priority should be to speak and to work for peace.
03:13You remember when President Trump took the office?
03:17He had immediately proposal.
03:19He offered Ukraine and Russia ceasefire immediately,
03:24sit down at the negotiation table, and sign a peace.
03:30What was his word?
03:31His word was that there will be no better condition for peace in the future.
03:38And his assessment was that the situation will get worse.
03:45On the other side, we had another offer to continue fighting, of course.
03:50Who put the offer?
03:51Let's put it up here in the open.
03:52European leadership.
03:53Okay, so you said the European leader said we'll continue the work.
03:55Absolutely.
03:56You remember this.
03:57They said we must continue fighting.
03:59Yes, I support this.
04:01We must deliver...
04:02Did he say we must continue fighting, though?
04:03We must deliver more and more weapons and money.
04:07So what is the result a year and a half later?
04:11I will tell you perhaps two things.
04:12I'm not Ursula von der Leyen.
04:14I think that is clear.
04:14Everyone can see it.
04:15I'm not...
04:16No, I'm not.
04:16But she would have said at the time, she didn't say stop fighting.
04:19She said weapons for Ukraine to equalize the field.
04:22I'm not envisioning Ursula von der Leyen.
04:25I'm not envisioning any European leader.
04:28But that was a common accepted approach for that time.
04:31Now we see a result.
04:34Hundreds of thousands more victims.
04:40Devastation of the country.
04:42Do you know I'm afraid about the latest Russian strategy?
04:49Because they have shifted their strategy.
04:52But is the answer saying we give you less?
04:55Because what the Europeans would say, the answer is not to say we cut military aid or equipment.
05:00It is not enough because we don't have enough on stock already.
05:05We have delivered everything we had in stock.
05:08And our defense industry needs time to produce it.
05:13And what is going on?
05:14That will be extremely heavy winter because now Ukraine cannot oppose enough, successfully enough,
05:21this intrusion of ballistic missiles and thousands of drones.
05:26They cannot counter these drones anymore with light arms and small man-carried defense systems.
05:38So it is a huge challenge.
05:41And if it continues like that, this will reflect from inside to outside,
05:47from the center of the country and industrial power back to the front line.
05:52So what is the path then?
05:54If you had it your way.
05:55What is the way forward diplomatically?
05:57My way is to achieve this tiny balance, extremely needed balance, again,
06:03between military, economic, and diplomatic instruments.
06:06We have not exhausted the power of diplomacy.
06:10We need to do and to speak more about diplomacy.
06:13What do you mean by that?
06:14Because over the weekend we saw the German foreign minister took a meeting with his Russian counterpart.
06:19In the end, I don't see any progress that came out of that.
06:22I do see that the Russian foreign minister played games and to some extent insulted his counterpart after the meeting.
06:29And I don't see that move in the goalpost.
06:31So is this a question of the people who should conduct democracy or diplomacy are not the good ones?
06:36Other people should go?
06:38Who should go?
06:39I think some years ago, my good friend, the prime minister of Belgium at that time, Xavier Battelle,
06:45stated this clearly.
06:47We must stop speaking about Russia.
06:50We must start talking with Russia.
06:55So we need to hear the concerns of both sides.
07:00Because at the final end, yes, of course, we need and we should support, continue supporting Ukraine.
07:07But the most important is to prepare the conditions for peace.
07:12And we should know that there is a limit of just delivering weapons and supporting
07:18because the final peace setup will be done by diplomacy, not by delivering weapons.
07:25So our call is to listen more to each other, to open the lines of communication.
07:31And the problem is that no one is raising the question about nuclear risk.
07:39Does it exist?
07:40Maybe not.
07:42I don't know.
07:43But this is a risk.
07:45All of us, we speak about conventional warfighting, support Ukraine conventionally.
07:52But we have been trying to achieve...
07:54Do you honestly think we die in nuclear destruction out of this war?
07:58You honestly think that that's one of the possibilities?
08:01I don't think.
08:02But we always need to think about the worst case scenario.
08:07Are we prepared for this?
08:09Does anybody speak about risk assessment?
08:13Does it exist at all?
08:16Because we have been trying to achieve a conventional victory over the biggest nuclear power
08:22without having capabilities to counter their supersonic weapons.
08:26There is a risk.
08:28And we need to calculate at what extent and how is it possible at all.
08:34I don't believe in this, but we should take this into account.
08:39We should not neglect this.
08:40How much can we press Russia without Russia reacting, with something else?
08:45I was listening also to...
08:47I don't want to repeat.
08:49I'm not an advocate of Putin and Lavrov at all.
08:53At all.
08:54But he warned a month ago, I guess, that if there is a war between Europe and Russia,
09:03this war will be totally different and very short.
09:08That was the warning.
09:09This is a threat.
09:10I don't accept this type of speaking, but they speak this.
09:14So you condemn it.
09:15You condemn that statement.
09:16You want to listen to this.
09:18No, I just wonder.
09:18When you hear that statement, what would you say?
09:20You say, I don't accept this.
09:21I say that...
09:23You're condemning those statements.
09:24I say that there is a nuclear card.
09:27And when Putin feels strong, he doesn't speak about this.
09:35When Russia feels weak, that happened in this war about some years ago, they start playing again with the nuclear
09:42card.
09:43So just I'm reminding that we need to have this into account.
09:50We cannot close our eyes that there are nuclear weapons on our continent, there are nuclear weapons in the arsenal
10:00of Russia.
10:01And this is part of the game calculation.
10:07And my appeal is that no one is speaking about this.
10:11No one is taking, you know, account of this risk.
10:16We have multiple analysts here who said they really believe to that extent it's a card that is played politically
10:22because the Russians think or seem to think weak leaders will get scared by it.
10:29You disagree.
10:30That's clear.
10:31Let's look at the eastern flank.
10:33There's a perception that the security picture for the eastern flank, certainly for the Baltics and Poland, has deteriorated over
10:40the past few months.
10:42We've also seen the drone violations of the airspace, what happened at the German airport, Romania.
10:49We've seen constant drone violations on and on and on and on.
10:53Is this now a time to rethink if this is hybrid warfare?
10:57And I wonder if you use that word, warfare yourself.
11:00Is this not a time for the Europeans to redefine what hybrid deterrence to this warfare should look like?
11:06You mentioned hybrid warfare with drones.
11:10And other types.
11:10And other types, of course.
11:12It is extremely difficult to counter these drones.
11:17Why?
11:17It is extremely difficult to detect them.
11:19They fly low.
11:21They use non-metal materials.
11:23It is extremely difficult to detect on the radars.
11:27So if you apply anti-drone systems, they need to be very, very congested on your boiler.
11:35That means a lot, a lot, a huge number of such systems.
11:40And their integration, and this is a huge technical challenge to all of us.
11:45And that's why my call is to think about this balance, about different instruments of power.
11:52And to design, to formulate a feasible end state of this war.
11:58Because we have changed our desert end state about seven to eight times.
12:05I don't remember even the formulation of these end states from the beginning of the war.
12:10That position is still a minority in the European Council.
12:13You say it's very different or very difficult to intercept the drones, the constant violations that we're seeing repeatedly.
12:20Is it because the European and NATO leadership is weak or is it because they're not sending the right message?
12:24If you escalate, so can we.
12:27So what is your proposal?
12:28To send a very hard warning to Russia.
12:33I agree.
12:34Okay, what about escalation?
12:37So you just accept they can do whatever they want.
12:39They can put explosives on an airport.
12:41They can...
12:42What's the alternative?
12:43No.
12:44My alternative is to open the lines of communication, to sit down and to discuss.
12:51This is my proposal, and sooner or later, it will be achieved.
12:58Again, it depends.
12:59This is a war of attrition.
13:01It reflects our economies.
13:02It reflects the price of the fuel, the price of the gas.
13:06It reflects the shortage of fuel and gas in the European Union as well.
13:12My question, however, on the money, you will have to be in a consensus question, both at NATO and at
13:18a European Union level.
13:20When you get told at NATO you have to pay 5%, you have to buy weapons that are still continue
13:26to be American.
13:27At the same time, we need to build our own European industry.
13:30How do you go about this?
13:32Because what I see from the outside is you pay for American weapons while trying to build your industry, while
13:39talking about made in Europe.
13:40You praise your visit with Macron.
13:42But to me, these are two strategies that at some point it's difficult to keep them on one lane because
13:46they're quite contradictory.
13:48So which one is it going to be?
13:49A made in Europe preference or not?
13:50The problem is that the European defense industry is highly fragmented.
13:56And, of course, we need to strengthen our defense industries.
14:00Safe instrument is extremely good instrument.
14:03Bulgaria is a very active participant in this instrument.
14:06Would you want a round two?
14:07There's been debate that maybe if the first round was successful, there could be a second one.
14:11Yes, there could be, and this is the right approach to strengthen our industrial base, to work together, to communicate,
14:20to coordinate, and this is the future for Europe.
14:22But as the prime minister of Bulgaria, if you have to sign a contract, and in the future you have
14:26two weapons that ultimately do the same job, one is European, one is made in the U.S.,
14:31would you say, of course we go for the European first?
14:34We need a European preference.
14:35Yes, of course, this is the part of the European strategic autonomy concept.
14:42And I fully agree that, and we have been working for this.
14:45We need to strengthen the European pillar of NATO because we need to take care about our defense capabilities.
14:55And we need to do it in a smart way.
14:58We cannot exclude the United States because the United States is a leader in defense technologies.
15:06We need to cooperate.
15:07But, of course, we need to protect our defense industries, otherwise they will disappear.
15:12And for Made in Europe, is it the right way to put this in writing?
15:17Do we need those percentages?
15:20Do we need that Made in Europe?
15:21By law, we need to operate like this, otherwise we continue our strategic dependencies on the U.S.
15:28Are you in favor of legislating in this way?
15:30We cannot immediately guarantee our security by ourselves.
15:36Even talking about the nuclear shield, we cannot go without the United States of America
15:42because they provide the essence of the core defense capabilities in NATO.
15:47It is absolutely clear.
15:51It will take time for us to recover, to renovate our industries, our industrial base, our technology development.
16:01Should Ukraine be a core part of it?
16:03We heard from the Ukrainians saying the Europeans will need us more than at this point we need them on
16:07the technology advancement.
16:08Should we get them in this context?
16:10Ukraine has been already a part of this.
16:12Because many European defense industries have already invested.
16:18Look at Rheinmetall, look at other companies.
16:21They have presence.
16:22They have invested.
16:23They have developed strong industrial sites and presence in Ukraine.
16:28Ukraine has been sharing latest state-of-the-art drone technologies.
16:34They have developed through experimenting them every day on the front line.
16:39So as an equal partner, anyway, the Ukrainians will say we will be joining the European Union.
16:43So this debate at some point...
16:46Of course, Western Balkans, Ukraine, Moldova, all of them, they have place and their future is full integration into the
16:57European family.
16:57This is obvious.
16:59This is of course.
16:59As a final question, when we hear NATO 3.0, the impression that I get, nobody will say publicly with
17:08these words, but ultimately it means that we are going to have to pay big time in NATO.
17:13We are going to still have to continue for or pay for those U.S. weapons.
17:16Otherwise, there will be a retaliation for the administration.
17:19But then we're going to have to do all the hard work of the soldiers, all the work that means
17:25real defense will be us.
17:27And ultimately, all that will be left is the U.S. nuclear umbrella that will protect the Europeans and still
17:35be there as a last resort in NATO.
17:37That is essentially what NATO 3.0 means for the Europeans.
17:40Is that how you see it, too?
17:42You say you're not politically correct.
17:43You're not in the mainstream.
17:44So I'm sure you can speak freely on this.
17:46We, when we speak about NATO 3.0 and the defense capabilities of Europe, we should put on the table
17:55economic part, social part.
17:59We should put tariffs on the table.
18:02We should put European cars talking with our most important strategic ally, the United States.
18:08We should put, because when we speak about defense capabilities, it means technology and industrial development.
18:17It should not go just for military equipment.
18:20It should go for everything.
18:21We cooperate with the United States.
18:24So tariffs are part of this approach.
18:27And Europe should put everything on the table.
18:31Your analysis of NATO 3.0, I still didn't fully understand it, because you said we need to put our
18:37economic relationship and even tariffs.
18:39The only tariffs are senior, the Americans are European products.
18:42So by 15%, they tripled.
18:45And we pay more into NATO.
18:46I'm just wondering, from your military background, when you look at this NATO 3.0 and you say this is
18:52the plan for the next 15 years, what does it look like?
18:54Do you have U.S. troops stationed in Europe, or you won't?
18:57I think we need also more effective diplomacy, speaking with the United States.
19:06So to bring everything in one basket, because everything is strongly connected.
19:12We cannot separate defense industry from technology, from science, from human capital, from industrial base, and all the products with
19:25dual usage.
19:26And they mix, especially in AI.
19:28And we are lagging behind here in Europe in AI.
19:31We should cooperate more strongly with the United States about AI.
19:39And we should go together as strategic allies and partners, because there are some other movements around the world in
19:48this direction as well.
19:49Well, Prime Minister, thank you so much for your time.
19:52You've been clearly very generous with your time, so thank you very much for joining us.
19:55Thanks.
19:56Thank you.