Bulgaria Caught Between Russia and the Euro: A Battle of Influence

Pro-Russ­ian influ­ence activ­i­ties in Bul­gar­ia have inten­si­fied ahead of the coun­try’s planned Euro adop­tion in Jan­u­ary 2026. On 31 May 2025, Veridi­ca report­ed that over one hun­dred protests across Bul­gar­ia stood against Euro tran­si­tion, coor­di­nat­ed large­ly by the far-right pro-Krem­lin Revival par­ty, while con­cur­rent cam­paigns pro­mote reli­gion in schools and nor­mal­ize anti-LGBT dis­course. The devel­op­ments coin­cide with rev­e­la­tions about a Bul­gar­i­an spy ring con­vict­ed in Lon­don for con­duct­ing sur­veil­lance oper­a­tions for Rus­sia between 2020 and 2023.

The arti­cle begins:

A vig­or­ous cam­paign against the adop­tion of the Euro, the nor­mal­iza­tion of anti-LGBT dis­course, and a cam­paign for reli­gion in schools have recent­ly raised ten­sions in Bul­gar­ia, in a peri­od that was also marked by the tri­al and con­vic­tion in the UK of six Bul­gar­i­ans who spied for Rus­sia and claimed to have con­nec­tions at the top of the Bul­gar­i­an state. Ahead of Bul­gar­i­a’s long-await­ed entrance into the sin­gu­lar Euro cur­ren­cy zone – cur­rent­ly set for Jan­u­ary 1, 2026, with the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion like­ly to give Bul­gar­ia the defin­i­tive green light on June 4, after the release of a con­ver­gence report – skep­ti­cal voic­es have been increas­ing­ly vocal. Last week­end, on May 31, over one hun­dred protests across the whole coun­try stood against the tran­si­tion, with the major one being in the cap­i­tal, Sofia. In many loca­tions, the size­able coor­di­na­tion has been made pos­si­ble through the sup­port­ers of the coun­try’s main far-right pro-Krem­lin par­ty, Revival, which had already done a few demon­stra­tions on the top­ic, often end­ing with van­dal­ism and police clashes.

          Read more: https://www.veridica.ro/en/opinions/spring-blossom-for-the-pro-russian-influence-in-bulgaria

Key Points

• Revival par­ty coor­di­nates nation­wide anti-Euro protests using nar­ra­tives that ditch­ing the lev threat­ens Bul­gar­i­an nation­al iden­ti­ty and makes the coun­try a Brus­sels colony
• Pres­i­dent Rumen Radev pro­posed an uncon­sti­tu­tion­al ref­er­en­dum on Euro adop­tion, using Europe Day to provoca­tive­ly chal­lenge EU inte­gra­tion despite par­lia­men­tary rejection
• Six Bul­gar­i­an spies received over 50 years com­bined sen­tences in Lon­don for con­duct­ing sur­veil­lance on jour­nal­ists and dis­si­dents for Rus­sia between 2020–2023
• Edu­ca­tion Min­is­ter and Bul­gar­i­an Patri­arch pro­mote manda­to­ry reli­gion cours­es while ban­ning LGBT con­tent, with 57% pub­lic sup­port accord­ing to polling data

Bulgaria & Russia, Influence: Political Networks, Propaganda, and Societal Impact

Russ­ian influ­ence in Bul­gar­ia is deeply embed­ded through a com­bi­na­tion of polit­i­cal alliances, far-right par­ty sup­port, and cul­tur­al advo­ca­cy. The rise of the Revival Par­ty, an open­ly pro-Russ­ian far-right group, has ampli­fied anti-EU and anti-NATO sen­ti­ment, lever­ag­ing Bulgaria’s his­tor­i­cal ties to Rus­sia and dis­sat­is­fac­tion with West­ern insti­tu­tions. Along­side Revival, oth­er pro-Russ­ian polit­i­cal par­ties like Bul­gar­i­an Rise and ele­ments of the Social­ist Par­ty have pushed nar­ra­tives align­ing with Krem­lin inter­ests, often using dis­in­for­ma­tion and pop­ulist rhetoric to polar­ize soci­ety and under­mine sup­port for demo­c­ra­t­ic reforms.

The Inter­na­tion­al Move­ment of Rus­sophiles, led by Bul­gar­i­an politi­cian Niko­lay Mali­nov, fur­ther exem­pli­fies the oper­a­tional and ide­o­log­i­cal con­nec­tions between Bul­gar­i­an actors and Russ­ian state inter­ests, with Mali­nov fac­ing espi­onage charges for alleged­ly pass­ing secrets to Russ­ian orga­ni­za­tions. Exter­nal­ly, inves­ti­ga­tions have revealed that Rus­sia has spent tens of mil­lions of euros on pro­pa­gan­da and inter­fer­ence cam­paigns in Bul­gar­ia, employ­ing covert finan­cial net­works and dig­i­tal oper­a­tions to manip­u­late pub­lic opin­ion and elec­toral outcomes.

Dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paigns, ampli­fied by low media lit­er­a­cy and oli­garchic media con­trol, have made Bul­gar­ia par­tic­u­lar­ly sus­cep­ti­ble to Krem­lin nar­ra­tives, while ener­gy depen­dence and polit­i­cal frag­men­ta­tion con­tin­ue to pro­vide fer­tile ground for Russ­ian lever­age. These dynam­ics are cor­rob­o­rat­ed by cyber­se­cu­ri­ty reports, think tank analy­ses, and inter­na­tion­al media, all point­ing to Bulgaria’s vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty as a con­duit for Russ­ian influ­ence with­in the EU and NATO.

Exter­nal References:

1. Rus­sia spent €69 mil­lion on pro­pa­gan­da and inter­fer­ence in Bulgaria

2. The Russ­ian Tro­jan horse in the EU: Bul­gar­i­a’s flawed democ­ra­cy and Russ­ian klep­to­crat­ic interests

3. A pack of viral lies: dis­in­for­ma­tion nar­ra­tives about Ukraine and why

Disclaimer

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.