  s/1850564541635055768 bulgaria also has parliamentary elections today. this is the 7th snap election for bulgarians in recent memory. the kremlin can only be too happy at this turn of events, as the uncertainty and instability is driving the vote towards fringe parties that are friendly or at least ambivalent to russia. sofia historically had strong ties with moscow due to trade, cultural and religious similarities, but since russia invaded ukraine, bulgarian pro-western majority government has stood strongly with ukrainians. in the early months of war, they supplied fuel and ammunition to kyiv, in spite of pro-russian sympathies of many in the local political elite, and expelled close to 100 russian diplomats on concerns over espionage. in this election, new and old players that are friendly to russia are projected to take about a quarter of the vote:  the far-right party revival is the biggest force to contend with  projected to get about 15% of the vote, they are explicitly anti-ukrainian. just this week, party leader kostadin kostadinov, who is banned from ukraine on suspicion of being a russian agent, called the ukrainian government zelenskyys criminal regime in a facebook post. much like the pro-russian powers in georgia, revival positions itself as the last protection of bulgaria from war  which to them means cooperation with russia. > part 1
Anarchist