Sofia, Bulgaria: To depict their solidarity with the population of Ukraine, thousands of Bulgarian citizens came on the streets and carried out a peaceful protest on April 7, 2022, Thursday, following the Russian invasion. The strike was a sequel of the March 24 protest under the theme “We are not neutral.” Â
Nearly 10,000 Bulgarian nationals participated in the peaceful event, which began from outside of the Alexander Nevsky cathedral in Sofia to the parliament of the European country. The population called for the Government of Bulgaria to provide the assistance of military equipments to the war-torn nation, on which the Bulgarian government has yet not taken any decision.Â
This call of supplying military equipment to Ukraine is being resisted by the governing coalition partner – the pro-Kremlin Bulgarian Socialist Party.Â
Besides this, as per the government sources, the Bulgarian administration was planning to expel the Russian Diplomat – Eleonora Mitrofanova over her offensive comments in which she insulted Bulgarian citizens and its government. This information has been denied by the BSP leaders as well as Prime Minister Kornelia Ninova, adding that no discussions have yet been done by the coalition government coalition council or the Cabinet.Â
On the other hand, one of the Jews organisations – Shalom, in Bulgaria, stated, “We see that the type of people who raise such slogans are part of the group of people who deny the reality of the Holocaust, permit themselves to ridicule Jews as ‘lampshades’, mock the memory of the 6 million Jews (murdered in Holocaust) and call their fellow Bulgarian citizens of Jewish origin ‘guests.”Â
Following the above statement, the organisation added, “We call on the Bulgarian authorities to take urgent measures and take appropriate decisions to stop this hatred from spreading among Bulgarian society. For its part, the Organization of the Jews in Bulgaria ‘Shalom’ will refer to all institutions in Bulgaria, as well as the ambassadors of the EU, the United States and Israel.”Â