Radev has urged Ukraine to sue peacefully, does not support sending arms to Kyiv and says his insistence that Crimea is “Russia” reflects a strategic reality. He is also critical of Sofia’s withdrawal from the euro this year, saying the new currency has fueled inflation.
In his speech after voting on Sunday morning, Radev said the election was an opportunity to “take back” the country from the oligarchs, but he also called for “mutual” relations with Moscow, based on Russia’s role in liberating Bulgaria from the Ottoman Empire in 1878.
While these positions have helped him build a base of support at home, he has avoided direct confrontation with the West and has generally fallen out of step with the mainstream European community when attending European Council meetings in Brussels.
European funds are important for the EU’s poorest member state and Bulgaria’s leaders have traditionally avoided any provocation in Brussels in the style of outgoing Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán.
The EU’s top diplomat said Radev was not close to Orbán as a disruptive force. They said Radev was in a “very different league” when it came to his abilities, and his desire to raise policy. He and others like Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico “don’t come close (to Orbán) with experience, tenacity, network and ideas,” the diplomat added.
A few days before the election, experimental variant of the MiG-29 Radev pushed back against accusations that he was pro-Russian.
