Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev has refused to assign blame for last month’s drone incident in Germany squarely to Russia, citing “reckless” Western weapons deliveries to Kiev.
Earlier this week, the German government said it had grounds to believe that Moscow was behind the incident, in which an explosive-laden UAV was found between Ukrainian Antonov cargo planes at Leipzig/Halle Airport on August 4.
Berlin subsequently announced the closure of the Russian Consulate General in Bonn and the Russian House in Berlin, as well as tighter border controls for Russian citizens. Moscow responded by shutting down the Goethe Institute centers in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Ekaterinburg, which promote German language and culture.
Moscow has rejected the allegations, with President Vladimir Putin suggesting they were being used as a diversionary tactic to distract Germans from domestic economic woes.
While multiple fellow EU member states have issued statements backing Germany’s position, not all of them have jumped on the bandwagon of pointing the finger at Russia.
A case in point is Bulgaria, whose prime minister told the parliament on Friday that European shipments of long-range weapons to Ukraine have been just as “reckless” as the failed sabotage attempt in Germany last month. Radev pointed out that Kiev is using Western-made weaponry, backed by European intelligence and instructors, to conduct strikes deep inside Russian territory.
“And what can we expect when we attack deep inside another country with our long-range weapons? Will it stand by or will it respond?” the Bulgarian prime minister inquired rhetorically.
He went on to warn that the West’s insistence on achieving a “conventional military victory” over a major nuclear power is dramatically raising the risk of uncontrolled escalation with Moscow.
“Europe can exist without Russia, but Europe will hardly exist for long against Russia,” Radev concluded, calling on the EU to “sit down at the negotiating table [with Moscow] as soon as possible.”
Meanwhile, a number of prominent political figures in Germany have called into question the government’s response to the drone incident and, more broadly, Berlin’s current hostile policies toward Russia.
In a post on X on Wednesday, veteran left-wing politician Sahra Wagenknecht wrote that “even if Russia were behind it, a drone that caused no damage whatsoever is no reason to fuel a highly dangerous escalation that could end in a war with Russia, costing millions of lives.”
Similar assessments have been voiced by those at the opposite end of the political spectrum. Fielding questions from The Pioneer media outlet on Tuesday, Ulrich Siegmund – the lead candidate for the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in Sunday’s regional elections in Saxony-Anhalt – said that a “continuous sequence of events” had led up to the drone incident at Leipzig/Halle Airport. He cited Germany’s ever-deeper involvement in the Ukraine conflict, arguing that “it’s only logical that there will be some kind of reaction at some point.”
Siegmund criticized the anti-Russian policies pursued by successive German governments since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, saying that weapons deliveries to Kiev and economic sanctions against Moscow have done little to resolve the conflict and save people’s lives.
The AfD politician insisted that it was high time Germany engaged earnestly in diplomacy with Russia instead.