Bulgaria

SOFIA, December 4. /TASS/: Bulgarian President Rumen Radev has vetoed an agreement for the donation of the Bulgarian Interior Ministry’s surplus armored personnel carriers to Ukraine, which had been approved by the Bulgarian parliament on November 22, the presidential press service reported.

Oct 18 (Reuters) - Washington's decision to send long-range ATACMS missiles to Ukraine was a grave mistake that will have serious consequences, Russia's ambassador to the U.S. said on Wednesday, after Kyiv said it used the weapons for the first time.

"The consequences of this step, which was deliberately hidden from the public, will be of the most serious nature," , Ambassador Anatoly Antonov said on the Telegram messaging app.

SOFIA, Oct 14 (NNN-XINHUA) — Bulgaria’s four-month-old government led by Nikolai Denkov on Friday survived a no-confidence motion filed by the opposition parties.

The motion was backed by 71 deputies of the ultra-nationalist Revival party, a coalition led by Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and the There Is Such People (ITN) party, while 143 deputies voted against it in the 240-member Parliament.

The opposition filed the motion on Oct. 5 over the government’s green transition plans.

SOFIA, Sept 18 (Reuters) - Bulgaria's defence ministry said on Monday it had sent a special unit to inspect and deactivate a drone carrying explosives which landed on Sunday evening in the Black Sea town of Tyulenovo.

Following inspection the team from NATO-member Bulgaria will decide how to dispose of it, the ministry said in a statement, adding that the team had been sent on the request of the regional government.

"We can certainly assume that it (the drone) is related to the war that Russia launched against Ukraine," Defence Minister Todor Tagarev told reporters.

31 August 2023; MEMO: The European Commission is looking “very closely” at whether the terms of a controversial gas deal between Bulgaria and Turkiye breach the EU’s competition rules, Energy Intelligence reports.

According to the report, Bulgaria wants to book capacity of about one bcm of gas per year at Turkish LNG terminals and seal import deals with European and United States LNG producers.

SOFIA, April 19. /TASS/: The technical government of Bulgaria has decided to ban import of a number of products from Ukraine from April 24 to June 30. Bulgarian Agriculture Minister Yavor Gechev announced this at a briefing following the meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers.

SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) — Bulgaria held its fifth general election in two years Sunday, which political leaders hoped would end government instability and provide a path to overcoming economic woes fueled by the war in Ukraine.

Turnout was expected to be low due to voter apathy and disillusionment with politicians, who have been repeatedly unable to cobble together a viable governing coalition.

SOFIA, Feb. 26 (Xinhua) -- One migrant died and 32 were injured when a van crashed in Bulgaria on Sunday before dawn, the country's prosecutor's office said in a statement.

According to the statement, the vehicle that carried 45 men from Afghanistan, hit a roadside guardrail on the Trakia motorway about 180 km east of Sofia.

The driver, also a foreign national, had escaped, the statement said.

As many as 18 migrants were found dead in a truck near Sofia on Feb. 17.

SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) — Authorities in Bulgaria have detained seven people in connection with an abandoned truck in which 18 people believed to be migrants were found dead, police said Saturday.

The bodies were discovered Friday in a secret compartment below a load of lumber in the truck, which was left on a highway not far from Bulgaria’s capital, Sofia.

Borislav Sarafov, director of Bulgaria’s National Investigation Service, confirmed that all the victims had died of suffocation. He called the case the country’s deadliest involving smuggled migrants.

SOFIA, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Bulgaria's President Rumen Radev on Tuesday formally asked "We Continue the Change" (PP), the country's second largest party, to form a government.

"You receive this exploratory mandate on the first working day of the New Year, when we traditionally wish each other health, peace and prosperity," Radev said as he handed the mandate to PP's prime minister-designate Nikolay Denkov.

"I accept this mandate with the clear awareness that the task is extremely difficult," said Denkov, whose reformist party holds 53 seats in the 240-member Parliament.