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Rumen Radev: Realism Replaces Naivety and Ignorance Regarding the Situation in Ukraine

There are important talks ahead on peace, the future of Europe and the global security architecture. Events in recent days have been unfolding with tremendous speed, and realism is replacing naivety and ignorance regarding the situation in Ukraine. This is what President Rumen Radev told journalists before the start of the Munich Security Conference.

The Head of State stressed that the development of the situation in Ukraine puts in a stupor a number of politicians, including Bulgarian ones, who are currently in a listening mode, as they blindly believed in the military solution, in the victory over Russia and its being pushed out of the borders in 2014. The president added that the same politicians have encouraged Ukraine, instead of building solid defensive lines to preserve its potential, to rush into a suicidal counter-offensive without the conditions for a successful offensive operation. This turned into a fiasco with disastrous consequences for Ukraine in terms of human, economic and territorial losses. "That is why Europe is most likely out of place for the time being in the dialogue that has begun between the US and Russia, and indeed for the future of Europe," Rumen Radev said.

In the Head of State's words, there is finally political will at the highest level to settle the conflict by means of diplomacy and this process should be supported. "But we must be aware that the conversation between Presidents Trump and Putin opens a new era of interaction between global powers, which shifts the institutional structures

Rumen Radev stressed that for us as Europeans it is not irrelevant what kind of a settlement it will be, whether it will be based on the principles of international law and the UN Charter or it will be based on power and spheres of influence. That is why Europe must come out of utopia as soon as possible and find its rightful place in the new geopolitical reality.

"Today we expect the American peace plan for Ukraine to be presented, but even if this does not happen, some contours of the American starting points for the negotiations are already becoming clear," Rumen Radev further stressed, adding that according to this plan Ukraine cannot join NATO, American troops will not participate in peacekeeping operations on the territory of Ukraine, and Europe should invest more in its security.

Rumen Radev singled out Europe's priority task as finding its place at the negotiating table, because these negotiations are being conducted in the name of peace in Europe and there is no way to find a just and sustainable solution without Europe itself.

Rumen Radev reminded in response to a question that a few months after the war began, an experienced diplomat like Henry Kissinger proposed his own plan for a peaceful solution - ceding territories to a sovereign, democratic and free Ukraine in exchange for the rest. "You know what happened to Kissinger, how he was criticized, how he was ostracized. You know what happened to every politician who tried to put forward a position of reason, who made realistic statements about what was happening and how it would end - he was blamed for you know what," the president said. Rumen Radev asked the politicians, including the Bulgarian politicians, who together have been pushing and leading to the situation we are seeing now, whether it had to take three years, to have hundreds of thousands dead, to have a devastated country in terms of economy, infrastructure and demography, to go back to the Kissinger plan, which is now unfolding. "Let everyone, including Bulgarian politicians, think about what should be the real behaviour of a politician in such a situation - whether to submit to the utopia with all its catastrophic consequences or to fight for what is actually possible," the head of state stressed.

Asked whether the EU should engage in direct negotiations with Russia, the president reiterated that there is finally the political will to find a peaceful solution to the conflict, demonstrated by Presidents Trump and Putin. Dialogue is therefore extremely important and the resources of diplomats should be mobilised.