Bulgaria goes to the polls for the eighth time in five years — and this time, a Russophile former president is making a bid for prime minister.
As Bulgaria heads to the polls for the eighth time since 2021, as Reuters reported, the stakes extend far beyond Sofia. For Ukraine, the outcome carries direct consequences: Bulgaria sits on the EU’s eastern flank and has, despite deep internal divisions, remained a potential security partner. A pro-Russian government would end that. For Brussels, it could mean yet another Orbán-style blocking vote embedded in European institutions.
How Bulgaria Got Here — Again
Bulgaria’s political dysfunction is now a structural feature, not an anomaly. The crisis that triggered this latest round of elections began in autumn 2025, when the ruling right-of-centre coalition led by GERB – which included the Bulgarian Socialist Party and the There Is Such a People party – attempted to pass a state budget raising taxes and increasing social security contributions.
The public response was swift. In December 2025, thousands of Bulgarians took to the streets in Sofia and cities across the country, according to Reuters, demanding judicial reform and an end to endemic corruption in the EU’s poorest member state. “Everything about it is extremely brazen. Shameless. Such arrogant behaviour defines this government,” said Shisman Nikolov, a 48-year-old salesman, at one of the rallies. A 21-year-old student, Kalina Yurukova, put it differently: “If you steal constantly, you must think you are above everyone else.”
The government first withdrew the controversial budget, then collapsed entirely. On December 11, Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov submitted his resignation. President Rumen Radev held consultations with parliamentary factions, but no coalition proved willing or able to form a government. On January 16, 2026, Bulgaria officially went to snap elections — its eighth in five years.
What followed was the move that reshaped the entire political landscape: Radev himself resigned from the presidency. By stepping down before the caretaker process began, he deliberately distanced himself from the appointment of a caretaker prime minister — a calculated manoeuvre, according to RFI, citing political analyst Dimitar Ganev, to avoid accusations of appointing a figure to oversee an election in which he himself would compete. His powers passed to Vice President Iliana Iotova, who became Bulgaria’s first female head of state.
On February 11, Iotova appointed Andrey Gyurov, deputy governor of the Bulgarian National Bank, as caretaker prime minister. Elections were set for April 19.
First in the Polls, Last to Publish a Platform
Radev’s next move was equally striking. Rather than creating a party from scratch — a process that under Bulgarian law requires notarised signatures from at least 50 founding members, founding assemblies with no fewer than 500 participants, a membership list of at least 2,500 people, court registration, and Central Electoral Commission filing no later than 45 days before the vote — he took the more pragmatic route: registering his coalition Progressive Bulgaria through an existing political formation.
The polls responded before a single policy was announced. In mid-February, two Bulgarian agencies ran parallel surveys. According to an analysis by European Pravda, Market Links gave Radev’s hypothetical party 25.6% — nearly double GERB’s 15.4%. Myara was even more bullish: 33.3%. For a political force with no official name, no programme, and no confirmed membership, these were remarkable numbers.
Volodymyr-Nazariy Havrish, an expert at the Ukrainian Prism Foreign Policy Council, identifies three reasons for this phenomenon in his analysis. First, Radev enters parliamentary politics as a fresh face at a moment when voters are exhausted by revolving-door governments. Second, he carried consistently high approval ratings throughout his presidency. Third — and most consequentially — his party still has no concrete programme, which leaves space for radically different expectations among different voter groups. The parallel to Ukraine’s 2019 presidential election, when Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s blank-canvas campaign attracted voters across the political spectrum, is hard to ignore.
Two Ideologies, One Candidate
The absence of a programme is both a weakness and a strategic asset. Part of Radev’s electorate sees him as a moderate Euro-Atlanticist who will preserve Bulgaria’s EU and NATO membership without deepening integration — a kind of managed status quo. Another part is counting on something closer to the Orbán model: isolationism, balancing between Moscow and Brussels, and a hard block on any assistance to Ukraine.
Both camps will vote for the same man until a programme is published.
What is not ambiguous is Radev’s track record. In 2016, speaking at a National Assembly of the Russophiles movement, he called for restoring trade with Russia and lifting sanctions: “The connection with Russia is capital for both Bulgaria and Russia. Let us pass on to future generations the warmth and humanity in relations between our two peoples.” That speech remains archived on rusofili.bg as evidence of his “correct” position — and it has not been disavowed.
Havrish outlines two probable scenarios for Radev’s orientation in government. Under the first — moderate Euro-Atlanticism — Bulgaria retains its NATO and EU membership but blocks deeper integration, drifting toward the Hungarian model. Commercial arms sales to Ukraine remain theoretically possible. Under the second — moderate Russophilia — Radev openly courts Moscow and Beijing, works to block Bulgaria’s eurozone entry, and positions any assistance to Ukraine as “prolonging suffering”. In this scenario, he would likely use Bulgaria’s participation in Trump’s peace initiative as rhetorical cover, mimicking the language of the American administration to deflect European criticism, as Havrish argues.
In both scenarios, the bilateral security agreement between Bulgaria and Ukraine – which has been waiting for signature since December 2024 – would remain unsigned.
The Coalition Arithmetic
Winning the most seats does not guarantee power. Radev needs coalition partners, and this is where the calculus becomes most dangerous for Ukraine.
Pro-European forces — primarily the We Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria (PP-DB) bloc — face an impossible choice: any alliance with Radev would be political suicide with their own electorate. That leaves two realistic partners for a Radev-led coalition: the Bulgarian Socialist Party, if it clears the 4% threshold, and the openly pro-Russian Vazrazhdane (Revival) party of Kostadin Kostadinov.
Notably, Radev’s entry into the race has already cannibalised Vazrazhdane’s vote. The party’s polling has fallen to around 4.5%, putting it at risk of failing to enter parliament for the first time in years. This is, in a sense, the most alarming aspect of Radev’s candidacy: he has absorbed much of the pro-Russian electorate while presenting a far more palatable face to the broader public. Kostadinov remains a niche player; Radev speaks to the mainstream.
If Progressive Bulgaria forms a coalition with both the BSP and Vazrazhdane, the consequences would be severe: a complete halt to any assistance to Ukraine, both bilaterally and within EU structures, and a new blocking vote at the heart of the European Council working against Kyiv’s interests.
Pro-European parties understand what is at stake. Their best tactical option, according to Havrish, may be to draw Radev into political processes that gradually erode his credit of trust — forcing him to take positions, make compromises, and burn through the goodwill he has accumulated precisely by avoiding specifics.
There is one limited upside in Radev’s rise: his consolidation of the protest vote may push genuinely populist and fringe forces — such as Slavi Trifonov’s There Is Such a People or the pro-Russian conspiracy theorist Ivelin Mihaylov’s Velichie — below the parliamentary threshold, slightly reducing fragmentation in the National Assembly.
Moscow’s Bets: Three Figures, One Operation
The prospect of a pro-Russian revanche in Bulgaria is not a single-candidate story. Based on an analysis of the political landscape ahead of April 19, a clear hierarchy of Kremlin preferences emerges — not one bet, but three parallel plays with different functions.
Kostadin Kostadinov and his Vazrazhdane party represent the ideological anchor. He is the only candidate whose programme explicitly calls for Bulgaria’s withdrawal from NATO and a renegotiation of its EU membership. His platform leaves no room for ambiguity. Even as Vazrazhdane’s polling has dropped below the parliamentary threshold for the first time, Kostadinov retains his function: should the party enter parliament, it becomes an indispensable coalition partner for Radev, providing the ideological ballast that Radev himself is too careful to carry openly.
Radev is the strategic bet. Moscow understands that Kostadinov cannot win alone — his ceiling is the committed pro-Russian fringe. Radev is needed as a blocking figure: sufficiently ambiguous on Russia to appeal to the mainstream, yet reliable enough to prevent the formation of a clearly pro-Atlantic government. His 2016 address to the National Assembly of the Russophiles — calling for restored trade with Russia and the lifting of sanctions — has never been retracted. It remains, as noted above, preserved on pro-Kremlin platforms as proof of his “correct” orientation.
Iliana Iotova, the acting president, is the target for discrediting. Unlike Radev, Iotova has allowed herself a public position on Russia and the war — and that was enough. She represents the one figure in the current institutional landscape who has not hedged, and her potential presidential candidacy is therefore a threat to be neutralised rather than a competitor to be engaged. The contrast is revealing: where Radev is given platforms and presented as a statesman, Iotova is subjected to coordinated attacks demanding she be excluded from future political contests — not on policy grounds, but through the simple application of labels.
Three operations running simultaneously, aimed at three different outcomes: amplify Kostadinov, build Radev’s image as a national leader, and destroy Iotova’s political credibility. Together, they form the architecture of what a Kremlin-aligned outcome in Bulgaria would look like — not a crude takeover, but a carefully engineered shift in the balance of power.
What Comes Next
Bulgaria’s April 19 elections are unlikely to end the country’s political crisis. They may deepen it. Even under the optimistic scenario — where Radev falls short of a majority and pro-European forces retain enough seats to provide a counterweight — forming a stable coalition in a fragmented parliament will remain an enormously difficult task.
Under the pessimistic scenario, Bulgaria moves toward the Orbán model: formal EU and NATO membership combined with systematic obstruction from within. For Ukraine, that means not only the loss of what limited support Bulgaria currently provides but also the emergence of another voice inside EU institutions working in Moscow’s favour. Bulgaria has been a meaningful, if quiet, contributor to Ukraine’s defence — supplying ammunition and military hardware throughout Russia’s full-scale invasion. Under a Radev-led government, even the existing commercial arms sales pipeline would be at risk. The bilateral security agreement that has been awaiting signature since December 2024 would almost certainly remain a dead letter. And in the broader EU context, Bulgaria would shift from a passive partner to an active obstacle — one more veto in the room whenever Kyiv needs a unanimous decision.
Political analyst Lyubomir Stefanov, cited by RFI, put the broader question plainly: “Let’s see whether we have learnt as a society the lesson that the problem is not in the rules of democracy, but in the people we allow to run.”
On April 19, Bulgarian voters will answer that question. The rest of Europe will be watching closely.
