This is how the EU’s poorest country secretly saved Ukraine: the Bulgarians supplied fuel and ammunition to Kiev, but had to keep the supply secret because of pro-Moscow politicians in the government | “The Right Side of History”
Last spring, Ukraine’s military was in desperate need of Soviet-era fuel and ammunition to fight the Russians. Salvation came from an unexpected place: Bulgaria.
Thanks to its fragile internal politics and the pro-Russian leanings of much of its elite, Bulgaria had to emphasize during the invasion that it was not arming Ukraine.
However, it was a smokescreen, according to An investigation by the German daily WELT and the website ‘Politico’ Thanks to the persuasion of Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kulba, former Bulgarian Prime Minister Kirill Petkov and his Finance Minister Esen Vasiliev were convinced to help the Ukrainians, Bulgaria used intermediaries to provide Kiev with vital supplies of weapons. Ammunition and diesel fuel at a critical point in the fighting last year.
As Petkov, who was Bulgaria’s prime minister at the outbreak of the war, tried to pull the country onto a more Western pro-NATO path, he had to deal with pro-Kremlin politicians, including his coalition partners, the Socialists, who are successors to the old Communist Party. He even had to fire his defense minister for lack of cooperation.Petkov publicly sought to downplay the idea that Bulgaria would help with Soviet-era weapons and arm Ukraine.
While the Socialist Party called Bulgarian arms shipments to Ukrainian forces a “red line,” Petkov’s officials used brokerage firms in Bulgaria and abroad to open air and land supply routes through Romania, Hungary, and Poland. “We estimate that about a third of the ammunition needed by the Ukrainian army in the early phase of the war came from Bulgaria,” Petkov told WELT.
The diesel supplied by Bulgaria to Ukraine is processed from Russian crude oil at a refinery in the Black Sea, which then belonged to the Russian company Lukoil. “Bulgaria has become one of the largest diesel exporters to Ukraine and at times covered 40 percent of Ukraine’s needs,” former finance minister Vasiliev told WELT.
Kolbe told WELT “We knew that the warehouses in Bulgaria had large quantities of the necessary ammunition so President Zelensky sent me to get the necessary material,” Kolbe said.
Faced with desperate requests from Ukraine, Prime Minister Petkov replied that his situation in the parliament is “not easy”, but he will do “everything he can”.
“Kirill Petkov showed integrity, and I will always be grateful to him for using all his political skills to find a solution,” Kolba said. The story, he said, was simple: while some members of the Bulgarian coalition sided with Russia, Petkov decided “to be on the right side of history and help us defend ourselves against a much stronger enemy.”
“Our private military industry was producing at full speed,” Petkov said. In April last year, cargo planes were seen “laden to the brim” with weapons flying between Bulgaria and Poland. What is known is that the Rzeszow airport in Poland, 70 kilometers from the Ukrainian border and closely secured by NATO, is a major shipping point. “We made sure that the land route through Romania and Hungary was also open for trucks,” Petkov said.
Kolba approved this supply. He emphasized that it was not a question of the Bulgarian government providing military aid directly to Ukraine, “but of giving Ukrainian companies and companies from NATO countries an opportunity to purchase what is needed from Bulgarian suppliers.” The US and Great Britain paid for the supplies. The socialist party in the government constantly threatened to dissolve the coalition if there was direct support in Kiev, but could not, because there was no such official support.
The Russians found out at a late stage that the Bulgarians were working for them and helping the Ukrainians, Bulgaria was under a cyber attack. On April 27, the Russian company Gazprom stopped supplying gas to Bulgaria, within 24 hours Prime Minister Petkov presented a solution that would allow nearly 7 million Bulgarians to do without gas from Russia. He arranged two tankers of liquefied natural gas from the United States – at the same price as Gazprom charged.
Petkov, who meanwhile lost a finger due to lack of training, insists that one thing is irreversible: “We showed the world that it is possible to manage without being dependent on Russia.”