When the EU moved to include Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, and former Lukoil president Vagit Alekperov in its latest package of sanctions against Russia, only one member state objected: Bulgaria.
During his first European Council meeting as Bulgarian prime minister on June 18, Rumen Radev said his country would veto the package, which includes 34 individuals and 47 entities, unless both Russians were removed from the list.
While Radev supported the opening of EU accession talks with Ukraine and met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Brussels to discuss energy security and drone manufacturing, he also publicly defended the Russian Orthodox Church’s role in Bulgarian history and described Alekperov as someone who had invested “resources and efforts” in Bulgaria’s sole oil refinery.
Radev’s veto threat comes just nine days after Bulgaria banned state arms supplies to Kyiv and days after a Russian drone struck the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra monastery, raising concerns that Bulgaria’s foreign policy may increasingly prioritize domestic affairs over EU unity on Russia.
What is Bulgaria’s link to Lukoil?
“We won’t allow sanctions that harm Bulgaria and its economy,” Radev told Bulgarian journalists in Brussels in a doorstep interview on June 18.
He said the measures could disrupt supplies of fertilizers and spare parts for the Sofia metro but added that his main concern was the risk to Lukoil’s oil refinery operations in Burgas.
Following US sanctions on the Russian company in 2025, Bulgaria took control of its domestic operations by appointing a special state administrator.
In response, Litasco, Lukoil’s Swiss subsidiary and the formal owner of its Bulgarian assets, argued that the move was unlawful expropriation and warned it could pursue legal remedies.
Why the objection to sanctions against Alekperov?
According to Bularia’s Economics Minister Aleksander Pulev, the dispute could expose Bulgaria to up to €3 billion ($3.43 billion) in liability.
Although local media report that there is as yet no official confirmation of arbitration, Radev pointed to the potential dispute to argue that sanctioning Lukoil founder Vagit Alekperov, who stepped down as company president and resigned from its board of directors in 2022, would be akin to “shooting oneself in the foot.”
The prime minister fell short of explaining how sanctions against Alekperov would affect Lukoil’s operations in Bulgaria or why defending him in Brussels would influence any potential legal dispute.
Radev’s religious arguments
While Radev advocated for politics to stay out of religious questions, he also said the Bulgarian Orthodox Church should have a say on sanctions against Russian Patriarch Kirill.
However, seeing as Bulgaria is constitutionally a secular state, the Church has no say on Bulgaria’s foreign policy.
Confronted with the fact that the Russian patriarch is one of the most loyal supporters of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, Radev replied that he “does not care about him but about the Russian Orthodox Church itself.”
He then linked his opposition to the sanctions to the Church’s contribution to Bulgaria’s liberation from Ottoman rule following the Russo-Turkish war in 1878, saying that “we are one family.”
Patriarch Kirill avoided sanctions in 2022 after the then Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, threatened to veto another EU sanctions package against Russia.
Lack of clarity
The lack of clarity in Radev’s arguments regarding both Alekperov and Patriarch Kirill sparked backlash from Bulgaria’s two largest opposition parties, GERB and Democratic Bulgaria.
They accused the government of allowing foreign policy to be shaped by Russian interests.
Although Bulgaria would not be the first EU state to block or delay EU sanctions against Russia — Hungary and Slovakia have done so in the past — such a move would be a first for Bulgaria, which had not previously blocked any EU sanction packages since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Pro-Russian Bulgarians support Radev’s decision
But Radev’s rhetoric resonated among pro-Russian Bulgarians, who praised his veto threat. According to the latest Eurobarometer survey, 45% of Bulgarians — almost twice the EU average — do not support sanctions against Russia.
However, according to Aleksandar Stoyanov, a historian at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, the historical arguments Radev used to back up his veto threat were inaccurate.
“Emperor Peter I abolished the patriarchate in the early 18th century and assumed control of the Church,” he told DW, adding that “the Russian Church had no independent role or influence regarding Bulgaria’s freedom outside the policies of the Russian Empire.”
The prime minister also referred to what he said was Russia’s larger role in liberating Bulgaria from “Ottoman slavery” — a politically charged term rejected by historians, who instead speak of “Ottoman rule.”
“This is not a slip of the tongue, it is using history for political demagoguery,” said Stoyanov.
Other Orthodox states backed sanctions package
Other Orthodox Christian-majority nations in the EU, including Greece and Romania, approved the sanctions against the Russian patriarch over his support for the war in Ukraine.
“There are member states that are concerned about Bulgaria’s shift in position, precisely now, when it seems to be the right moment to apply final pressure on Russia in order to eventually reach negotiations,” Vessela Tcherneva, deputy director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, told DW.
Tcherneva questioned Bulgaria’s reasoning behind the expected sanctions veto: “Even if this is a way for Radev to consolidate domestic political support, the benefits for Bulgaria in a European context are quite questionable,” she said.
Talking to two audiences
Radev left the European Council summit with a political win under his belt after the European Commission greenlit Bulgaria’s fourth payment request for a new tranche of its COVID-19 recovery funding under the EU Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF).
He used the occasion to argue that domestic critics were exaggerating his case for vetoing the sanction and that EU institutions were showing faith in Bulgaria’s new government.
Bulgaria might make good on its threat to veto the sanctions package during a meeting of the permanent EU representatives (Coreper) in July. If it does, and unless an agreement is reached, Patriarch Kirill and Alekperov might stay off the sanctions list.
“The idea that one can be constructive within the European Council and then go out and speak about the national interest to the Bulgarian public is not new,” Vessela Tcherneva told DW. “The question is how long Bulgarian society will be willing to tolerate this dissonance.”
Edited by: Aingeal Flanagan
