Bulgaria Urgently Asks EU For Protection

• 2.04.2026, 10:39

The Kremlin wants to influence the country's elections.

Bulgaria officially appealed to the European Union with a request to help counter possible Russian interference on the eve of the elections. This is reported by Politico with reference to the text of the Bulgarian government's letter.

Last week, the authorities sent an appeal to the EU diplomatic service with a call to stop campaigns to manipulate public opinion through social networks and propaganda sites.

Sources say a network of Russian-linked accounts are operating in the country to spread discord in society ahead of the vote scheduled for April 19.

The letter emphasized that assistance is needed "given the heightened risk of coordinated disinformation campaigns and foreign interference that could undermine the integrity of the electoral process."

Sofia has reportedly engaged investigator Christo Grozev to advise a special unit that will coordinate a response to hybrid threats.

One of the officials, on condition of anonymity, noted that Bulgaria had previously "preferred not to bring these issues into the public domain," but that protection of the information space has now become the number one priority.

In addition, the country is requesting the activation of a mechanism called the "Rapid Response System" under the Digital Services Act (DSA). This will allow meetings with representatives of Meta, Google, TikTok and other platforms to identify and suppress disinformation.

According to analyst Georgy Angelov, an illustrative example is Romania, where a little-known candidate with a pro-Russian stance unexpectedly won in TikTok.

"After what we saw in Romania, this looks like a very dangerous trend," he emphasized.