Rumen Radev, winner of Sunday’s legislative elections in Bulgaria —the eighth in five years— and future prime minister of the EU’s poorest country, has made it clear on several occasions that he opposes maintaining European military aid to Ukraine and advocates for re-establishing relations with Vladimir Putin’s Russia, a position that clashes head-on with Brussels. He reconfirmed this on election night, even before the final result was known, which, with 98% of the votes counted, gives him a sufficient majority to form a government alone.
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This former 62-year-old commander-in-chief of the Bulgarian Air Force stated that he trusts Brussels to act more pragmatically from now on regarding Russia. “Ask President (French, Emmanuel) Macron, the Prime Minister of Belgium, or other European leaders, including (former) Chancellor (German Angela) Merkel, who said months ago that this dialogue (with the Kremlin) must be resumed,” Radev remarked.
“Not only because of the new security architecture in Europe, which is inevitable and for which we must work, but because, if we want Europe to have true strategic autonomy, it must seriously reflect, in this increasingly serious crisis, on how it will guarantee its resources,” he detailed, in allusion to the energy crisis derived from the conflict in the Middle East.
Speeches like that have led some to consider Radev a new Viktor Orbán (the still Hungarian prime minister, who has just lost his own elections): a Trojan horse fed by Russia within the EU to erode the foundations of the Union from within. Various analysts, however, reject that comparison.
Radev, president of Bulgaria since 2017, resigned from that position just three months ago to run in the legislative elections, with the aim of continuing to lead the country from the prime minister’s post. For this purpose, he created a coalition of small left-wing parties called Progressive Bulgaria. He did so a few months before his second term ended, and thus tried to capitalize on the discontent of a citizenry weary of the successive unstable governments that have emerged in recent years and the endemic corruption of this country of 6.5 million inhabitants.
Despite the symbolic position he held as president at the time, Radev earned a robust reputation among the thousands of protesters who caused the government’s resignation in December 2025, following the largest protests recorded in Bulgaria since the fall of the communist regime in the late 1980s.
To broaden his social support, the leader of Progressive Bulgaria has balanced between Brussels and Moscow. “He supports Bulgaria’s membership in the EU, but believes that the community bloc needs pragmatism and that it has tried to be a leader in a world without rules,” says Bulgarian journalist Vladimir Mitev.
“In his opinion, the EU needs more industrialization and security; and both must be achieved through a better relationship with Russia,” continues the communicator, skeptical about the figure of the election winner: “Radev’s rise is an attempt by the Bulgarian oligarchy to maintain control over the resources of power that provide income, in a changing international context where sanctions against Russia seem to weaken after the start of the US-Israeli war against Iran,” he interprets.
Radev assured, in a television interview before the elections, that if he won, Bulgaria would not block European aid to Ukraine, which partly deflates the similarities with the Hungarian Viktor Orbán. “The Orbán phenomenon cannot be repeated in another country, as it appeared under special and unique conditions,” says Mitev, who believes that Radev will only oppose some policies in European institutions, such as the review of conditions for starting negotiations with North Macedonia on its entry into the community family.
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Mitev points out that Bulgaria does not have an alternative economic source beyond Western Europe, while Hungary has attracted significant American and Chinese investments. “If an Orbán-type regime appears in Bulgaria, I hope it will be in a mild form, without prejudice at the European level and with an exclusive orientation towards the interior of the country,” he insists.
Despite comparisons with Orbán in the media, political scientist Gergana Stefana also dismisses them. “Although he has adopted unconventional positions on certain European issues, such as the war in Ukraine, nuclear energy, or sending weapons to Ukraine, Radev has never resorted to a veto in decision-making processes; he has merely suggested that possibility, while his representatives have systematically voted in line with the European mainstream [general opinion],” emphasizes the expert, specialized in Security and the fight against Radicalization and Terrorism.
Stefana emphasizes that the Sofia authorities have shown “more a behavior of conditional conformism, in which a critical public stance coexists with a real adaptation to the European consensus.” And she specifies: “Part of this rhetoric responds to a strategy of internal mobilization and preparation of the electoral ground, in a context of growing social unrest in recent years.”
This discontent is linked to the effects that Bulgarians perceive as negative from European integration at the current time: inflationary pressure (price increases) and increased public spending due to support for Ukraine; and it is accentuated by expectations surrounding accession to the eurozone, which it joined in January.
“The most likely strategy [for Radev] will involve positioning Bulgaria as a balancing actor between East and West, taking advantage of its geostrategic location,” predicts Stefanova, who stresses that the five interim governments appointed by Radev when he was president “do not show a homogeneous anti-European line, but they do outline a tendency towards a more sovereignist and conditioned participation within the framework of the EU’s common foreign policy.”
Of those governments, the first maintained pro-European positions regarding the Western Balkans and Ukraine’s sovereignty. But, after the Russian invasion in February 2022, Bulgaria began to place a much greater emphasis on national interest, energy security, managing the effects of sanctions, and limiting the risks derived from the war.
“This does not equate to an open ‘Orbánization,’ as Bulgaria does not abandon the sanctions framework or reject its Euro-Atlantic membership, but it does allow Radev to be described as a leader who seeks a more reserved and nationally filtered version of European solidarity,” points out the political scientist, who believes that the former president, due to his professional military background, will be firm on sensitive issues such as historical memory and national identity.
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