Bulgarian President Rumen Radev has vetoed an agreement on the donation of a large batch of armoured vehicles to Ukraine and returned the document to the People’s Assembly (parliament) for consideration. According to the head of state, the Bulgarian border guards and rescuers need this equipment
“The armoured highly passable transport vehicles provided to Ukraine could be used in guarding the Bulgarian border and assisting the population in disasters and accidents. The life and health of Bulgarian citizens should be the main priority,” TASS quoted the presidential press service as saying.
Earlier, the Bulgarian parliament approved an agreement with Ukraine on the gratuitous transfer of about 100 units of Bulgarian Interior Ministry armoured vehicles and spare parts to Kiev.
Representatives of the parliamentary majority, who secured the adoption of this document, believe that they will be able to overcome the veto. This was stated, in particular, by Parliament Speaker Rosen Zhelyazkov. This confidence is also shared by Prime Minister Nikolai Denkov.
As analysts note, the MPs have grounds for such confidence. “According to the constitution, Bulgaria is a parliamentary republic. The president mainly performs protocol functions. Yes, he has the opportunity to veto some parliamentary decision, which he did, but his veto is very easily overridden by the parliamentary majority. Therefore, if the government wants to override the veto (and it is determined to do so), then the agreement will come into force,” Nikolai Topornin, director of the Centre for European Information and associate professor at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations of the Russian Foreign Ministry, told RT.
For his part, Vladimir Putyatin, associate professor of the Department of History of the South and Western Slavs at the Faculty of History at Moscow State University, believes that Radev’s decision is part of an internal political struggle.
“It is not the first time there has been discord there between the president and the government. These disagreements are caused by the fact that Rumen Radev and the majority in parliament represent different political forces. Before that, there was a similar case in October, when Radev criticised parliament’s increase in tariffs for Russian gas transit through the country,” the analyst explained in a commentary for RT.
Support without weapons
It is worth noting that on 4 December, simultaneously with Radev’s decision, the authorities of several EU countries announced their unwillingness or inability to continue sending weapons to Ukraine.
Thus, on Monday, Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala said that the republic would be forced to cut military aid to Ukraine due to the depletion of its own stocks. At the same time, he emphasised that Prague would continue to support Kiev.
On the same day, Geert Wilders, leader of the Freedom Party (PVV), which won the Dutch parliamentary elections, spoke out against the transfer of weapons to the AFU, while emphasising that he supports Ukraine in the current conflict.
“But I believe that the Netherlands should not supply them with weapons for defence, because we have very few weapons ourselves,” the politician said, adding that he was in favour of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.
Finally, Robert Fitzo, who headed the Slovak government in October this year, said in a conversation with Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmygaly that Bratislava would no longer send military equipment to Kiev.
“I confirmed Slovakia’s interest in helping Ukraine in humanitarian and civilian areas. And excluded the supply of weapons and ammunition from state warehouses and the army,” RIA Novosti quoted Fitzo’s statement after the talks.
The politician noted that he did not believe in a military solution to the conflict in Ukraine, which, according to him, leads only to bloodshed.
Ending military support for Kiev was one of the election promises of Fitzo and his Směr party. In September, he stated, among other things, that the Slovak armed forces were in decline due to the sending of weapons to Ukraine, and promised to stop military aid to Kiev if his party came to power.
Also in September, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said that he would stop supplying Ukraine with military equipment. The politician said that Warsaw intended to equip its own armed forces. These words were said against the background of the cooling of relations between the two countries, which was caused by Warsaw’s ban on imports of Ukrainian agricultural products.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban also repeatedly spoke about the unwillingness to arm the Kiev regime.
“The plans to defeat Russia were utopian.”
The statements by the leadership of several EU countries came amid growing scepticism in the West about the results of the Ukrainian counter-offensive, as well as difficulties in the US with approving funding for further aid to Ukraine, experts said.
“At various levels, politicians in Western countries are expressing scepticism about continuing to supply Ukraine with weapons on the same scale because their expectations have not been met. The Ukrainians told everyone that the counter-offensive would bring tangible results, they planned to go almost to the border with Crimea. However, six months have passed and Ukraine has not demonstrated any tangible results, and in some areas they had to retreat at all,” Nikolay Topornin explained.
According to him, some politicians in the West are coming to realise that the plans to defeat Russia were a utopia.
“Even Stoltenberg has become more cautious about the situation on the front. And those who criticised Kiev’s armament policy before have now only strengthened their voices,” the political scientist said.
Topornin believes that the wave of refusals to supply Kiev with weapons is not due to changes in the political course of these countries, but rather to the exhaustion of their military stocks.
“The arsenals of states, especially of such relatively small ones, are of a limited nature. They were not designed for such large-scale combat operations over such a long period of time. What reserves they had, they have already handed over to Ukraine. Now they no longer have at their disposal the amount of equipment that Ukraine needs. Therefore, the refusals are simply evidence that these countries have exhausted their potential,” the analyst believes.
He added that the exhaustion of resources may indicate that such countries as Bulgaria, Slovakia or Poland will not be able to support Ukraine in the future. At the same time, Nikolay Topornin emphasised that the main burden of supplying the AFU with weapons does not lie with these countries.
“The bulk of military supplies comes to Ukraine from the United States. Then come Germany and Great Britain. And countries like Slovakia, of course, had certain stocks, but compared to the leading NATO states, they were limited and could not have a decisive impact on Ukraine’s military potential,” Topornin noted.
Despite this, according to Vladimir Putyatin, the increasing number of cases of public refusal to provide military support to the AFU still worries Kiev.
“We cannot talk about a stable trend now. However, such steps have not been taken before in the West. And the fact that they are being taken now certainly makes the authorities in Kiev, as well as the European Union and NATO, worried. As such decisions may become the beginning of changes in the mood in Eastern Europe, which is suffering from the consequences of anti-Russian sanctions and the Ukrainian crisis,” the analyst summarised.