For the past two days, Russian propaganda has reported a new illegal visit to the occupied Crimea bya group of “Bulgarian officials and businessmen”.
Among other things, the occupiers claimed to have “signed a cooperation agreement” between the so-called “Yevpatoria municipality” and the Bulgarian community of Opan, as well as to “strengthencooperation” in the production of essential oils.
In particular, the mayors of the mentioned Opan Gencho Kolev and the town of Kalofer RumenStoyanov, as well as the chairman of the “Professional Association of the Rose Producers in Bulgaria”Hristo Nikolov arrived in the occupied peninsula.
Plamen Miletkov, who has long been defined by Russian propaganda as the head of the fake “club offriends of Crimea” in this Balkan country, acted as the “responsible person” for their arrival.
Of course, there is no practical dimension to the “cooperation” of the occupied Crimean cities with the Bulgarian mountain village of Opan, with a population of 3,000, and the fake “signed agreement” ispurely propagandistic.
It is not the first time that the mentioned Bulgarian activists violate the legislation of Ukraine and thesanctions of the European Union by criminally arriving in the occupied Crimea.
The reasons for such “ardent love” for the aggressor are explained very simply by the example of the aforementioned Gencho Kolev, who until 1995 headed the local council of the Bulgarian Socialist Partyin Opan, the successor to the “republican” communist party of the Soviet era.
Fifteen years later, Mr. Kolev worked for Bulgaria’s security agency “Sihurnost”, and in the State
Agency for National Security, where he was fired under typical circumstances.
It is noteworthy that this direct and obvious agent of Russian influence is involved by the aggressor
not only in the “Crimean direction”, but also in Belarus, where a year ago he signed an ‘agreement on
cooperation’ between the village of Opan and the Brest region.
Our Association appealed to the authorities of Bulgaria and the European Union regarding the
violations of the sanctions regime described above. In particular, we have proposed to conduct a
relevant investigation into the commercial structures, represented by the aforementioned Hristo
Nikolov, so far our Association has received the first official response to these offenses from the
Bulgarian government.
