Bulgaria Expels Russia Diplomat for Spying on US

Today, Bulgaria declared its dissatisfaction with the Russian military attaché at the Russian embassy and granted him 72 hours to leave the country.

According to Reuters, prosecutors said that the Russian diplomat sought to obtain sensitive military information, including the number of US forces deployed in Bulgaria, a member of NATO, during a military exercise.

The Bulgarian Attorney General Ivan Geshev said that the Russian diplomat was gathering information on the number of personnel and locations of the US military during the exercises that have been taking place in Sofia since 2017.

Afterwards, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yekaterina Zakharieva, received a letter from Attorney General Geshev stating that the diplomat in question was gathering information representing state secrets.

In response, the Russian embassy in Sofia announced that Bulgaria's unjustified expulsion of a Russian diplomat does not contribute to the development of dialogue, and Moscow reserves the right to respond.

The embassy statement on Facebook stated: “On December 18, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Bulgaria announced the presence of a military, air and sea attaché in the Russian embassy in Sofia as undesirable."

It continued that "the unjustified expulsion of the head of the representative office of the Ministry of Defense in Russia does not contribute to engaging in a dialogue between Sofia and Moscow in the military field, as well as strengthening stability in the Black Sea region."