Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Bulgarian interim Prime Minister Andrey Gyurov exchange signed documents in Kyiv, Ukraine, 30 March 2026. Photo: EPA/SERGEY DOLZHENKO.
Arguments erupted between parties running in Bulgaria’s April 19 snap elections after interim Prime Minister Andrey Gyurov and Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky, signed a ten-year cooperation agreement in Kyiv on Monday.
According to the deal, Bulgaria will continue its military assistance to Ukraine, including training and joint production of drones and ammunition, under the EU’s Security Action for Europe, SAFE, programme.
The agreement also covers cooperation in intelligence and security, countering hybrid threats and disinformation, strengthening security in the Black Sea region, cooperation on sanctions, humanitarian support, as well as cultural initiatives for the Bulgarian minority in Ukraine.
“We are working to ensure an active energy corridor … This corridor could amount to around 10 billion cubic meters of gas per year that Ukraine can receive,” Zelensky stated.
“We appreciate the great experience Ukraine has on protecting critical infrastructure as well as ensuring freedom of navigation in the Black Sea,” Gyurov told their joint press conference, describing Zelensky’s governance as a “moral compass”.
The agreement follows a decision to strengthen the partnership between the two countries ratified by Bulgaria’s Council of Ministers in October 2024.
However, the Pro-Russian far-right Revival party reacted with outrage, stating that “the unlawful Prime Minister of Bulgaria has signed an unlawful contract with the unlawful President of Ukraine” and calling for the interim ministers to be “immediately arrested”.
Former President Rumen Radev, who recently launched his own party, Progressive Bulgaria, to join the election race, also criticised interim Prime Minister Gyurov for creating “a risk for national security”, saying: “Bulgarians are expecting elections and protection for rising costs from you, not our further involvement in a war.”
The traditionally pro-Moscow Bulgarian Socialist Party said the move only brings “further division in Bulgaria right before the elections”.
Bulgaria has had an uneasy response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which has created new dividing lines in the country between pro-EU and Eurosceptic or pro-Russian parties. Governing coalitions have consisted of opposing forces, such as the pro-EU We Continue the Change party and the Kremlin-friendly Socialist Party. The war in Ukraine also saw Radev adopt an increasingly nationalist and hardline approach, opposing sanctions on Russia as President.
However, despite disagreements over sending Ukraine aid, Bulgaria has become a major seller of ammunition to Kyiv. “At the beginning of the [Ukraine] war, one-third of the weapons used in Ukraine were coming from Bulgaria”, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen noted last September.
The Kyiv visit is one of a series of developments connected to interim Prime Minister Gyurov, who assumed office on February 11.
On March 20, Gyurov stated that Bulgaria will quit US President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace”, although it is unclear what actual institutional steps this would require: Bulgaria’s participation in Trump’s project was signed off by previous premier Rosen Zhelyazkov after his government was brought down by mass protests.
The caretaker cabinet led by Gyurov is also acting upon hundreds of reports of voting fraud ahead of the April 19 elections.
Despite his growing public profile, in his first on-air TV interview last Sunday, Gyurov insisted he does not have further political ambitions. His interim cabinet should be dissolved this spring once the next parliament convenes after the elections and agrees a new Council of Ministers.