Bulgaria's Foreign Ministry appeals to Russia: Release oppositionists

Bulgaria demands the immediate release of all political prisoners in Russia. Sofia wants the authorities in Moscow to conduct a transparent and objective investigation into the death of Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny. This was the reason why Bulgaria’s Foreign Ministry summoned the Russian ambassador to the country. However, she did not show up and sent her representative.

Russian Ambassador Mitrofanova was summoned to the Foreign Ministry, her deputy went instead

Instead of Eleonora Mitrofanova, the deputy head of the mission has appeared at the Ministry of foreign affairs on February 23. It was not clear why, as yesterday Mitrofanova personally attended the presentation of flowers for the Day of the Soviet Army at the memorial ossuary in "Lozenets" residential district of Sofia. Today, Bulgaria expressed its indignation at

The demarche calls on the authorities in Moscow to conduct an immediate, transparent, thorough and objective investigation into Navalny's death, including the involvement of an independent international commission. Bulgaria has also expressed deep concern at the continuing systematic repression of citizens and political opposition.

"The Bulgarian side urgently called for the immediate and unconditional release of all other political prisoners, including Yuri Dmitriev, Vladimir Kara-Murza, Ilya Yashin, Alexei Gorinov, Lilia Chanisheva, Ksenia Fadeeva, Alexandra Skochilenko and Ivan Safronov, as well as human rights defenders, journalists and anti-war activists arbitrarily detained for the peaceful exercise of their human rights and opposition to the Russian-led aggression against Ukraine," the Foreign Ministry's position said.

The Russian embassy reacted to the demarche with a position on Facebook, in which they point out that the events surrounding Navalny's death are an internal matter and the attempts to pressure are interference in internal affairs. And that during the meeting the Bulgarian side shared "tendentious assessments of the political situation in Russia in the form of the already familiar Western clichés."

At the same time, there was talk in Parliament today of freezing the assets of the Russian Cultural Information Centre in Sofia, including bank accounts. During the question time, Bulgaria’s Foreign Minister, Mariya Gabriel, said that her ministry would support such a step, and the reason for this could be the link between the centre and the Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States, the so-called "Rossotrudnichestvo", and that she and its head are on the list of sanctioned from the EU.

"The foreign ministry expresses a consistent position on the need for the adoption of a dedicated, normative act that would regulate in its entirety the public relations and regulate the powers and responsibilities of individual institutions in the implementation of restrictive measures of the EU, the UN and at the national level on the freezing of financial assets," Foreign Minister Mariya Gabriel said.

Gabriel called for the adoption of such a normative document as soon as possible.