Russia-aligned Radev, a former fighter pilot, scored a landslide win in Bulgaria’s eighth election in five years. During his campaign, Radev accused rival parties of enabling an oligarch-dominated mafia state. He stepped down as president earlier this year to run for prime minister.
Radev has encouraged Ukraine to sue for peace, does not support sending arms to Kyiv and says his insistence that Crimea is “Russian” simply reflects a strategic reality.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said in a brief X post he’d “look forward to continued cooperation on shared security challenges” with Radev.
In Brussels, reactions from some in the center-right European People’s Party and center-left Socialists and Democrats groups were forthright. Czech conservative MEP Tomáš Zdechovský said, “Bulgaria has sent a clear — and deeply concerning — signal.”
“Rumen Radev, a politician openly critical of support for Ukraine and long seen as sympathetic to Russia, appears to have secured a parliamentary majority. This is no longer just an election result — it is a serious geopolitical shift,” he wrote on X.
Austrian Social Democratic MEP Andreas Schieder said, “With Radev, the next Putin friend will likely enter the Council, and Orbán is thus merely passing the baton,” describing Radev’s election as a “setback for Europe.”