Ambassador Georgi Panayotov discusses Black Sea security and Bulgaria’s support for Ukraine.
Ivanna Kuz
Hello, my name is Ivanna Kuz, and welcome to the “State of the Alliance”, a series that brings together thought leaders from Europe and North America to deliberate some of the most pressing challenges for allies and partners. Today, I’m honored to welcome the Ambassador of the Republic of Bulgaria to the United States, His Excellency Georgi Panayotov. Ambassador, welcome and thank you so much for joining the conversation.
Georgi Panayotov
Thank you very much. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Ivanna Kuz
Wonderful. The past several months have been busy and important for the alliance and for European security. And I know that there’s so much to discuss as we look forward and into 2024. Ambassador, I would love to start with Ukraine, of course, we are now 20 months into Russia’s unprovoked full scale invasion of Ukraine. The alliance has been unwavering in its support. In your assessment, how would you assess the alliance’s efforts in supporting Ukraine up to this point?
Georgi Panayotov
Let me first stress that the Russian President Vladimir Putin made a very serious if not fat, or strategic mistake. What he wanted to achieve is to prevent the expansion of NATO, the enlargement of NATO, what he actually achieved is the opposite. Because both Sweden and Finland voice their desire to join the alliance. But what is more, the alliance is united, more than ever stronger than ever, and absolutely determined to help Ukraine with every, in every way possible. You know, that this is happening in a multilateral format. It’s called the Ramstein Format. After the name of a town in Germany, the Minister’s of Defense and the Chiefs of Defense are meeting there. And they’re considering the needs of the Ukrainian military. And subsequently, they’re organizing the necessary support and help. This is happening on bilateral basis to not only on multilateral basis, on bilateral basis to but aside from the military aspect, I would like to mention that the NATO member states are helping Ukraine in many other ways. They’re providing humanitarian aid as well. We are welcoming refugees, my country welcomed more than 150,000 Ukrainian refugees, and we are integrating them into our society. We are providing education, we are providing medical here, we are providing social services. So NATO is helping Ukraine and will continue helping Ukraine for as long as Ukraine needs that.
Ivanna Kuz
Thank you. Thank you, Ambassador. Thank you, for all of Bulgaria support to Ukraine, bilaterally and within the alliance. I want to pivot a little bit to the Eastern Flank of the alliance. There are many threats to the alliance as a whole but specifically to the Eastern Flank. As you look forward the next couple of months, next couple of years – from your perspective, what are the most pressing security challenges that are facing the Eastern Flank?
Georgi Panayotov
Russia, that that is an easy one, Russia. You know, the thing is that Russia’s actual leadership wants to revitalize the Soviet Union. This is this is the reality we’re facing. And Mr. Putin as an ex KGB colonel, he cannot accept the reality that the Soviet Union is not there that it doesn’t have that influence, not only globally, but even in Europe. And he wants to go back in history. Now, what we fear is that even after the war in Ukraine ends, Russia’s ambitions to dominate Europe will not stop. What we fear is that the next countries on Russia’s list for invasion for aggression, could be Moldova and Georgia. What we fear is that Russia probably would dare to violate the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of a NATO member country. This is the biggest threat, according to our assessment, and we want to work closer with our allies in order to strengthen the NATO presence on the Eastern Flank, not only for deterrence, but also for defense purposes. We want to strengthen our defense. And when we are mentioning the Black Sea, you know, in the last strategic concept of NATO, the geopolitical geostrategic importance of the Black Sea has been acknowledged. But I’m, I think that the strategic awakening of the Alliance when it comes to the Black Sea is not there yet. It’s not there yet. Why? It’s already almost 600 days, that no NATO ship, I mean, not belonging to non littoral countries outside the Black Sea littoral, NATO states, Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania. No other NATO ship entered Black Sea already for 600 days. We’re talking, we are cooperating, we’re working together with our allies, Romania and Turkey. We are about to form mine countermeasure group in order to secure the freedom of navigation because the Russians, they’re playing very dangerous games with sea mines. And we would like to step in in order to ensure the freedom of navigation. And we’ll do that. But the trilateral cooperation between the NATO littoral states in the Black Sea notwithstanding, we think that it cannot be substitution to a robust NATO presence in the Black Sea. We think that we have to, once again strengthen our defenses there. Bulgaria, for example, is considering very intensively to acquire new, onshore based anti ship complexes systems. We are talking with allies and partners to acquire submarines. We are building new ships in Bulgaria, as we talk here, the the ships are being built in the Varna shipyard together with the Germans, you know that we host, a multi national battle group, NATO battle group in Bulgaria, and we have the ambition to that battle group to be increased to a brigade level and later to division level, hopefully, why? Because we see that the threat is there. Historically, you know, historically, Russia has been dominating the Black Sea. And why because the Black Sea is the gateway to the Mediterranean as well, to the eastern Mediterranean, including, and it’s the Russian Black Sea Fleet that projects the Russian influence in the eastern Mediterranean as well. So what happens in the Black Sea doesn’t stay in the Black Sea. And we’d like very much our allies to understand that, to comprehend that, because passive behavior on behalf of NATO in the Black Sea will be very costly at the end of the day.
Ivanna Kuz
Absolutely, Ambassador, thank you for raising the Black Sea, because I want to stay a little bit on that topic. I have a couple of follow up questions. But the first one is about the joint demining initiative that the allies in the Black Sea are planning. Very exciting. And it will be the first such joint effort by the allies in the region since the full scale invasion, very welcomed leadership effort. I know that this is still in the first stages, so I know that not everything has been determined, but from where you’re sitting, what are some of the short term and long term expectations and objectives from Sofia, that you’re expecting for this effort?
Georgi Panayotov
Now, you probably know that the Russian Navy blocked large segments of our exclusive commercial zones in the Black Sea for more than one month. And you know that several mines have been detected in the Black Sea. Some of them on the Bulgarian coast. Some of them exploded, as you know, some of them armed vessels in the Black Sea, commercial vessels. So I’m very proud that Bulgaria is not only consuming security in this case, but we are working to actively contribute to the security in the Black Sea by forming that important trilateral mine countermeasure group together with our Romanian and Turkish allies. Once again, this will happen and it will have significant impact. But it cannot substitute the NATO presence in the Black Sea. You know, there are two standing naval mine countermeasure groups of NATO. And earlier they were, they were visiting the Black Sea. And they did great job there. I think that really NATO has to turn its face again, to the Black Sea because Russia’s ambitions are clear. They want to dominate the Black Sea. They possess excellent A2/ AD capabilities, anti access anti denial capabilities in the Black Sea. The occupied Crimea serves them as a unsinkable aircraft carrier, they can observe, monitor everything that moves in the Black Sea, and they can take down almost everything that moves on the Black Sea. And this is bad. You know, once again, we think that even after President Putin Russia’s ambitions to dominate the Black Sea, we’ll be there. And their confrontation with NATO will not weaken. It will be there too. We must be ready for that.
Ivanna Kuz
Absolutely. Yes. And Russia has you know, Black Sea has been a pivotal focus point for Russia for decades. This is not something new with Crimea, they have more access, they have more –
Georgi Panayotov
For centuries, for centuries..
Ivanna Kuz
You’re correct, you’re correct – for centuries. Exactly. I want to before obviously, before we close the discussion, I have to touch on energy. We’re coming to winter season, and I know Russia stopped the supply of gas to Bulgaria last year. I know that Bulgaria has kept the transit of the gas to Hungary and Serbia, if I’m not mistaken, recently raising some of the transit fees to those two countries in an effort to impose economic sanctions on Russia. Taking a long term view, how do you see European countries enhancing resilience of their energy sectors, especially as they try to shift away from dependence on Russian gas imports? And especially as we might face much harsher winters? Last year, Europeans were lucky. I highly doubt we’ll be as lucky in the coming winters.
Georgi Panayotov
Very important question, Ivanna. The thing is that Russia’s strategy to weaponize energy backfired to it backfired until last year, Bulgaria was 100% percent almost 100% dependent on Russian gas. Today, as we speak, Bulgaria is 0% dependent on Russian gas. Why? Because they cut us off, and they thought that we’ll surrender we’ll beg, we’ll plead, no. We found alternative solutions. Thanks to our allies and friends in the first place, the United States of America. We started importing LNG, and we finalized finally, we finalized the construction of interconnector between us and Greece which brings us gas from Azerbaijan. Now, what we did is that just a week ago, we imposed a tax on a pipeline transporting Russian gas to Serbia and Hungary, we have every right to do so. Although some people are not happy, but we have every right to do so. And why we did it. You know, last year when Russia weaponized energy, Europe started to look for alternatives and we’re not ready. Now, with the interconnectors there with LNG terminals functioning in many countries, we don’t think that Russian energy deliveries should be treated differently should be tolerated. There is a clear EU policy for sanctioning Russia and we are talking were discussing with the European Commission, this measure on imposing tax on the Russian gas imports into Serbia and Hungary. But, once again, we think that this is the right thing to do. Because we will make Gazprom pay more, not the importing countries, because importing countries, they pay a fixed price at their border, we’ll make Gazprom pay more, and will decrease the revenues of Mr. Putin to finance its aggressive war against Ukraine.
Ivanna Kuz
Absolutely and that’s the goal and we know that resilience societal, but also energy is critical, not just the military support of Ukraine in order to make sure that Russia does not achieve victory in this war. Ambassador, thank you so much for this wonderful conversation for your insights, for your time today. And thank you for tuning in into this conversation on the State of the Alliance hosted by CEPA. Please follow CEPA social media accounts, and cepa.org for updates on upcoming events and recent analysis.
