Bulgaria says it’s facing ‘unprecedented increase’ in hybrid attacks from Russia

By Ahmet Gencturk

ATHENS (AA) - Bulgaria has been facing an “unprecedented increase” in hybrid attacks from Russia, the Bulgarian foreign minister claimed on Thursday.

"In parallel with Russia's aggressive military actions, we are facing an unprecedented increase in various hybrid attacks aimed at undermining Bulgaria's resilience and thus our democratic values and processes,” Nikolay Milkov said at the opening of the Sofia Security Forum international conference, according to state-run BTA news agency.

Calling the Russian war on Ukraine a “violation of the international legal order,” he argued that it has dealt a “serious blow” to the contemporary international security architecture.

Milkov accused Russia of using “hybrid techniques, instrumentalisation of energy and food supplies, cyber activities of control over sensitive technologies, unprecedented intensification of propaganda aimed at domestic political destabilisation of our societies - provoking discontent and reducing solidarity with Ukraine.”

This, he said, has forced NATO and EU to have “certain responses."