Bulgaria Agrees to Repair Ukrainian Military Equipment
Speaking in Kyiv on April 28, Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Kiril Petkov said his government would repair damaged Ukrainian military equipment, while Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said his country was “ready to supply electricity to Bulgaria.”
The meeting took place a day after the Russian energy giant Gazprom said it was cutting gas supplies to Bulgaria and Poland over their failure to pay in rubles.
In a joint press conference after the meeting, Zelensky said the pair discussed supplying gas to Bulgaria via the Trans-Balkan pipeline and the potential transport of agricultural products from Ukraine through the Bulgarian port of Varna.
The agreements came as Bulgaria’s coalition government continued to debate whether to send military aid to Ukraine. On April 25, Petkov, frustrated by the ongoing debate, launched a charity fund for the Ukrainian government and called on citizens to donate their salaries — a move opposing politicians said was insensitive to the more than a million Bulgarians living below the poverty line, Balkan Insight reported. Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba thanked Petkov for launching the campaign, saying it demonstrated “true Bulgarian solidarity with Ukraine.” Credit: Volodymyr Zelensky via Storyful
Video Transcript
- [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY: [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
[CHATTER]
- Pleasure.
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY: Good to see you, Mr. Prime Minister.
- Thank you.
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY: How are you? You are wonderful.
- I'm really happy to be here with you and to you show strong support on everything else. We'll do it together.
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY: Thank you.
- You're welcome.
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY: Thank you so much.
- Thank you.
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY: You're very welcome.
- It was actually self-defense.
[CHATTER]
- You're making me one hour, say. I had a meeting with the Minister of Defense of Poland. That's why I'm late.
- I know. Yes, I know.
- [INAUDIBLE] We'll see you in there.
- [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
- [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
- [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
- [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
- [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY: [INAUDIBLE]
- Good afternoon.
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY: You've never been here?
- No.
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY: And you've never been to Ukraine.
- No.
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY: No, just Zurich, after the war.
- Soon, soon.
[? VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY: ?] Of course.
- The whole issue has been up to now, I think, more better. But I believe that it's important from the beginning and a strong voice for full support for Ukraine. And my Chief of [INAUDIBLE] help us in the midst of the war that we saw today. There were the whole [INAUDIBLE] from Chile and we hope after the things that you showed us today that-- now this part is very important because my thing is to see-- very, very touching when we saw to think of how we can organize, export rules to the finance law. This is really happening. And because Ukraine has normally-- we banked over 90%, that they wanted to let you know that we've been thinking, how can we give real help? Because I see that and [? the ?] [? cold ?] [? side, ?] of course, [? is ?] [? the ?] [? truth ?] [? today, ?] [? not ?] [? just ?] [? Canada, ?] [INAUDIBLE]. We have all the way to Ukraine. So that's point number one which is real. [INAUDIBLE] $7 billion per month to surviv.e
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY: The European Commission and United States, all of us because we have [INAUDIBLE] pipeline that used to come from Romania.
