Tensions rose in Bulgaria’s capital after Ukrainian website Myrotvorets added Bulgarian policymakers to their blacklist of enemies, while President Rumen Radev, as well as three parliamentary forces – pro-European GERB and pro-Russian Vazrazhdane and the Bulgarian Socialist Party, demanded the government investigate further.
The list of Bulgarian enemies of Ukraine includes the Deputy Speaker of the Bulgarian Parliament and an MEP. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian embassy stated that the website is in no way related to the state institutions of Ukraine and does not reflect the official policy of Ukraine.
The website in question was created in 2014 and has a database of individuals considered enemies of the country. It is said to be run by the “Non-government Center for Research of Signs of Crimes against the National Security of Ukraine, Peace, Humanity, and the International Law”.
Currently, the site lists as enemies of Ukraine the names of artists, politicians, journalists and celebrities from many countries, including Henry Kissinger, rock legend Roger Waters and Croatian President Zoran Milanovic. Kristian Vigenin from the Bulgarian Socialist Party, the Deputy Speaker of the Bulgarian Parliament, and MEP Elena Yoncheva (S&D).
“The Bulgarian state and the ambassador of Ukraine should contact Mr. Zelenskyy. After his visit (to Sofia on 6 July), everything that Bulgaria could give was given – warehouses were emptied, weapons were given, aid was given, humanitarian aid, and we accepted refugees. And Bulgaria gets this! For scientific, creative and journalistic purposes, kill Bulgarians around the world. Simply absurd,” socialist party leader Cornelia Ninova said on Thursday.
The Bulgarian Socialist Party stated that it wanted a definite and clear position of the state, the government and the services about the list of Bulgarian names. The party will send the case to the State Agency for National Security and the parliamentary committee.
Just a day earlier, Radev pointed out that when there was a threat to Hristo Grozev (Bulgarian investigative journalist from Bellingcat), the state immediately activated all services. According to Radev, the same should happen now.
GERB leader Boyko Borissov also commented, saying that during the meeting of the foreign policy parliamentary committee, of which he is the chairman, he assigned Deputy Prime Minister Mariya Gabriel and her Deputy to investigate who is behind the site.
“It is absolutely inadmissible for journalists, Bulgarians and the deputy speaker of the parliament to be on the list, so we all took this decision to act”, he explained.
On Tuesday, the leader of the pro-Russian radical Vazrazhdane party Kostadin Kostadinov demanded a reaction from the state on the subject and an investigation of the case. Vazrazhdane called for the people on the list to get state protection.
On Wednesday, the Ukrainian embassy in Sofia published a statement that “the activity of the public organisation Myrotvorets is in no way related to the work of the state institutions of Ukraine and does not reflect the official policy of Ukraine.”
“The information filling of the Peacemaker site is carried out from generally known and generally available open sources, which are used exclusively for scientific research, creative and journalistic purposes,” the embassy states.
The Union of Bulgarian Journalists sounded the alarm, first announcing that since 2018, the Myrotvorets list also includes Bulgarian journalists “appointed for execution because of their professional work.”
The organisation believes European institutions should be notified about the existence of this site in a country that is being encouraged to push for EU membership.
Yoncheva commented that it is inadmissible for the names of journalists to appear on this site because of their work. She specified that the website’s owner is known and that they have no connection with the government of Ukraine.
“I found out by accident that I was on the site Peacemaker. It contains the names of journalists, activists, and politicians. Some of them were killed. (…) In 2019, for just one day, the name of Olena Zelenska, wife of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, was on the list of enemies, at that time, he was a candidate for the president of Ukraine,” she said.
The MEP added, “It was deleted immediately after Zelenska’s explanations that in 2014 she mistakenly shared a position of pro-Russian propagandists on Facebook because, at that time, she did not know how to do it in such a way as to express indignation”, Yoncheva told Bulgarian National Radio.
(Antonia Kotseva, Krassen Nikolov | EURACTIV.bg)
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