Bulgarian President calls Ukraine's victory over Russia "impossible"

Ukraine's victory over Russia is "impossible" and the prolongation of hostilities is "disastrous" not only for Kyiv and Moscow, but also for all Western countries, Bulgarian President Rumen Radev has said.

"Every day the continuation of this war is disastrous for Ukraine, Russia and all of us. It inevitably affects all elections – in Europe, in the United States, and everywhere else in the world," Radev was quoted as saying by Euractiv.

According to him, it is "unacceptable" to present the continuation of the war and victory over Russia "as the only possible solution" to the conflict.

He also mentioned the assassination attempt on Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, calling it a dangerous situation when "voices for peace are met with shots" and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine is beginning to flare up in Europe.

"The attempted assassination of a European prime minister by a radical fanatic because of his support for peace is a testament to this intolerance of dissent and hatred. Many politicians, parties and media contributed to this by portraying every voice as pro-Russian, which is extremely unfair and leads to all these negative consequences," the Bulgarian president stressed.

He warned that if the war continues, Ukraine will become "a demographically devastated country, with completely destroyed infrastructure, industry, production, and this will have extremely serious consequences not only for Ukraine but for the whole of Europe".

Radev urged to look for opportunities for negotiations rather than supplying more weapons to Ukraine.

"With weapons, without weapons, we are heading for the same result. We have to realise this. The difference will be in thousands of human casualties and a destroyed country, for the restoration of which we will have to pay," the Bulgarian president concluded.

Earlier, Czech President Petr Pavel suggested that Kyiv should stop hostilities and start peace talks with Moscow. According to him, Ukraine will not be able to regain control of the Russian-occupied territories in the near future. At the same time, Pawel stressed that Kyiv faces a risk of losing the war. This, in his opinion, could happen if the West continues to be overly cautious in providing weapons.

Background. As a reminder, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said that Fico is between life and death after being injured, and that even if he recovers, he will not be able to work before the European Parliament elections, the Hungarian prime minister said.