A NATO and EU-Member Country Has Become A Putin-Worshipper — And It Is Not Hungary!
Bulgaria’s Shame Goes Way Back In Time
In case you have not heard of it, this tiny country, on the opposite side of the Black Sea to Ukraine, has 30% of its population worshipping Putin and his war and swearing death to NATO and the European Union, to which they have belonged since 2007.
Bulgarian social media is inundated with fantasy worlds and deliberately twisted “truths,” compared to which Trump’s “alternative facts” are a mild understatement.
My initial shock and dismay at the mental capacity of those who read and share such disinformation soon explained itself with my realization of the scales of deliberate propaganda Russia has subjected their small neighbor since at least 2014. Numerous circulating posts depict a Putines-que rather than a Kafka-esque reality, as would become any decently psychopathic mind.
Struggling to make ends meet in the UK over the last 15 years, I had nearly completely missed out on what had been happening on the ideological front in the country I left. I discovered gross misinformation, twisted facts, and blatant untruths presented through badly-edited Youtube videos narrated by voices claiming to belong to “renowned” “scientists,” “politicians,” or “philosophers,” unheard of until their present “glory” YouTube days. They often promised to “reveal the truth your state media hides from you,” sucking you into a bizarre world of repeated and repetitive lies.
An independent Bulgarian journalist recently announced that his organization had uncovered evidence that the Russian government had been paying Bulgarian media channels to twist the truth about the war and present Ukraine in a negative light.
(Source: OFFNEWS in Bulgarian)
But the cyber psychological war had been going on for much longer, with, regretfully, very “pleasant” results for the unnamed Russian accounts spreading it.
- Ukraine is governed by fascists.
NATO is a fascist organization waging a secret (and not-so-secret) war against Slavic Orthodox Christianity. Since 2014 the US has paid many Ukrainian neo-nazis from the AZOV party to kill, burn and slaughter thousands of peaceful Russians and Bulgarians living on Ukrainian territory. Through his “denazification” operation, Putin aims to “incise the tumor of Nazism, poisoning Ukraine,” thus saving Europe and the world from “the American evil.”
The “facts” are backed up with long, elaborate lists of names and dates of murders of “peaceful Russians and Bulgarians” by the Ukrainian “Nazis.” Photos of grave plaques show “victim” names and weeping women laying flowers add the last emotive touch. These are circulated consistently and relentlessly — the same names, the same dates, again, and again, and again.
Lesson: understand that these names/dates/videos were only partly true, and the story was taken out of the context, twisted, and grossly exaggerated.
- Ukraine has embarked on genocide against ethnic Russians.
More lists of Russian name killed in the aforementioned “genocide”, are cited with persistent consistency. Moving stories depict the atrocities in graphic detail and continue to record the plea of their families and friends. Sentences end with at least 3 exclamation points, fuming with anger and fear.
Lesson: understand that Russia has embarked on then-implicit, now-explicit genocide against the Ukrainians.
- Ukraine is killing its own people in the Donbas region.
Donbas is the area of the self-pronounced Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. Kremlin propaganda states that between 13,000 and 14,000 ethnic Russians have been killed by Ukrainian Nazis in the region since 2014.
The truth is that both groups have killed opponents. The actual number of the total casualties is 3400 (the figure is taken from UN data but multiplied by 3). Most of them are Ukrainians, killed by the pro-Russian separatists, sponsored by Putin himself (a fact the lying propaganda never mentions).
Witnesses talk about how the pro-Russian authorities in these “republics” have been limiting the rights of their Ukrainian residents, subjecting them to false imprisonment, torture, and unlawful kidnapping — exactly the crimes the Russian propaganda ascribes to the Ukrainians.
Lesson: to learn the truth, swap over the nationalities.
- The US holds secret bio-laboratories in Ukraine.
This legend had been circulating for quite some time but rang more strongly when a few weeks ago, Sergei Lavrov brought it back on Russian state TV, adding that the bio-weapons there were also ethnically oriented (understand, Ukrainian bio-weapons specialized in killing ethnic Russians with genocidal purposes).
The ridiculousness of the claim caused an avalanche of bitter humor by the enlightened Bulgarians on social media. Memes and jokes flooded, speculating about questionable bio-types of insects or birds, who would ask for Russian passports before they bite and poison these ethnic group members. I did not know whether to laugh or cry.
Lesson: the Russians were implicitly threatening the Ukrainians with their own bio-weapons — a fact Biden picked in his speech 3 weeks ago and threatened Russia with severe retaliation should they act on their threat.
With this one, as with most propaganda legends, it rests upon some facts. There are indeed bio-labs in Ukraine, inherited from the Russians since Soviet times. Deadly pathogens, left in them by the Soviets, have already been destroyed by the Ukrainian government in their attempt to keep the population safe.
Lesson: the Soviet Russians created the bio-labs to kill “the enemy” or their own citizens with dissident views. After the regime’s fall, Ukraine made sure these were “disabled” and completely safe.
Suppose you venture a vain attempt to explain to a “Putinofile” that the disinformation they have been fed is, in fact, disinformation. In that case, they attack you in a foaming rage, claiming it is you who has been brainwashed by NATO fascist propaganda and are a hopeless national traitor.
Lesson: understand the opposite.
(Source: Deutsche Welle in Bulgarian; the “lessons” were written by the author)
The word NATO for those Bulgarians has now become a symbol of evil, an enemy, a destroyer. People have been suffering from paranoia, sharing that they see NATO helicopters at night, spraying their land with COVID and other lethal bio-substances. They are now gripped by the irrational fear that NATO wants to destroy the Slavic gene and the roots of Orthodox Christian traditions. Any deviation from the above is met with verbal violence and abuse.
It is fact grossly ironic that Bulgaria is a NATO member itself.
I tried arguing with these people on their Facebook pages. I tried reasoning with facts, analyzing their fears, and reminding them how the Soviets used to lie and brainwash us in the same way 30 years ago.
I got nowhere. The “zombification” had gone too far. These people were not thinking; instead, I heard memorized phrases consistently repeated — “Ukrainian Nazi,” “violent drug addict,” “Banderov,” “Maidan” (some of these I had not heard — I had to research what they meant).
I felt just like the times when as a “pioneer” schoolgirl, I listened to “Glory to the Soviet Communist Party!” on demonstration days.
I find these days extremely upsetting. Each morning when I check my phone for the latest facts from the war, I dread Facebook circulations. I dread discovering how many more lies my old homeland has been exposed to each passing day.
I read a fact reported by Reuters or the BBC. Then I find the same fact on Facebook, twisted by a pro-Russian troll, with the names changed. Not just unnerving; it sets my blood boil.
Just 2 examples:
The image of the Russian rocket that killed 40+ civilians at the Mariupol train station, bearing the inscription “for the children,” is presented as fired by the “Ukrainian Nazis” under Zelensky’s command, intending to kill Ukrainian children. Don’t ask me where the logic in that is.
The fact that Russians shot at humanitarian corridors and killed peaceful Ukrainian civilians trying to escape to safety was presented as: “the Russians were trying to protect the poor Ukrainian civilians, trying to flee the fire of Ukrainian Nazis shooting at the humanitarian corridors, as ordered by NATO.”
Black has become white. Two million Bulgarians on social media are already worshipping Putin, begging him to come and “save” them from NATO and the EU.
Split national image? Borderline nationality disorder? Nationalistic schizophrenia? Bipolar nationality?
All of the above.
Bulgaria has suffered from its proximity to Russia since the end of 19C when Tsar Alexander II— our“liberator” and “little father” — announced he had “freed” us from the 500-year-long Ottoman oppression. Finally, the small tribe, which obstinately preserved their Orthodox Christianity and Slavic customs (their biggest pride to this day is that they never succumbed to enforced Islamization), got their country back.
Alexander was not that concerned about granting freedom to the God-forsaken little tribe. He had hoped that, after taking on the already ailing Ottoman empire, he would win the war and avail himself of whatever little tribes the dying beast would leave behind — liberated but lost, ripe and ready to be absorbed in devouring Russian jaws.
Wrong. The other Western countries, allied with Alexander against the Turks, did not allow him to occupy Bulgaria. The Ottoman province was granted independence by the Treaty of San Stefano of March 3, 1878, which provided for a self-governing Bulgarian state. Fearing the establishment of a large Russian client state in the Balkans, the other Great Powers, especially Great Britain and Austria-Hungary, revised the treaty further, scaling back the proposed Bulgarian state. Smaller but independent; not made into the most backward province of the Russian Empire.
Knowing that it would never be allowed to take Bulgaria, Russia avenged itself by spreading the rumor that it was an “eternal friend” to the Bulgarians. It had liberated them out of its purest motives and compassion; it was the Western “baddies” restricting the small country and causing it to lose its original borders. The Western allies were Bulgaria’s true enemy.
Thus the myth of the Russian father-liberator of the Bulgarians was born — praised by poets and refuted by politicians.
Propaganda of both views had been going on since then — until Communism silenced the anti-Russian version.
Scroll down 60 years. It is 1944.
WWII is near its end. Bulgaria, with its German king, fights on Germany’s side. King Boris III, with remarkable lucidity and valor, does not allow a single Jew to be deported from the country to German concentration camps. Before the war, Bulgaria was a progressive little state, vibrant with innovation and positive government decisions for import and export, busy building its image on the global scale.
Then Russia decided it needed to be “liberated.” The Bulgarians are “ravaged by the fascists”. They have to be “denazified.”
In steps the heavy Russian boot to “liberate” us.
Sounds familiar?
On Sept 9th, 1944, the Red Army established a Communist regime in the thriving principality and stalled its progress and fruitful aspirations of becoming a genuine member of the world. It brought it 100 years back in time.
It made it “the first satellite” of the U.S.S.R.
In a land of breathtaking beauty and fiercely intelligent and gifted people, I lived in squalor and was fed on pro-Soviet propaganda. My family was lucky to get a 2-bedroom apartment, for which there were waiting lists of 10 years. If you wanted to buy a car (even if you had the money), you were put on a 15-year waiting list.
In school, I studied how Russia has liberated us twice — once from the Turks and once from the fascists. On TV, I listened to how Big Bad America was getting ready to bomb us with their newest nuclear weapons. In Military Education classes, I learned how to put a gas mask on. I dissembled and assembled a Kalashnikov. At military camp, I fired a Kalashnikov. I did everything right.
But I did not trust the Russians. I had given up believing in the “glorious future”; it never came. I had little to eat or clothes to wear. I lived in a grotty area with dirt roads. I was not allowed to travel outside the country.
Rumors were going around that the U.S.S.R. was buying the products of our sunshine — the fragrant fruit and vegetables, the copious wheat harvests — at sheer kopeks. Our government sold Russia our gold, our metals, iron, and ores, for nothing — the country went bankrupt 3 times.
When Chernobyl exploded, we were told that “nothing was wrong” and were not instructed to take precautions. We ate radioactive food because we were not aware it was dangerous. Rumors circulated that the Communist leaders had food imported from abroad for just themselves and their families.
I counted down the days, burying myself in Western literature — Hugo, Balzac, Dickens, Shakespeare, the Brontes. When you have read these, you cannot believe Communist lies. I knew one day this would end, and I would be able to, finally, live.
Communism came crashing down in 1989.
In the subsequent chaos of the transition to democracy, the only candidates for the new government posts were ex-Communist leaders — the only people rich enough to organize election campaigns and bankrupt enough to bribe their electorates to vote for them.
Bulgaria joined NATO and the EU in 2007. Things did change a little. Those who were young, healthy, and willing to work improved their lives by either emigrating or making their own fortunes in the country. Many cities, villages, and roads were cleaned up and rebuilt with EU money. Clean new apartments and houses were erected, sometimes right in the middle of post-Communist squalor.
But not enough. Much of the dirt and chaos, and perhaps all of the corruption from the old regime, remained.
Masses of EU funds (and I mean, billions), were privatized into VP and government officials’ bank accounts; many luxury mansions and villas abroad were bought with it. Simultaneously, ordinary people on minimum wage and pensioners starved. Corruption ran rampant.
To add to the disappointment, new EU “morals” were brought from the West — LGBT people were protected by law, and “gay parades” were allowed in public spaces. Bulgarians felt that their last stalworth fortress — their hypocritical moral superiority — was being shattered. And felt even more vulnerable.
Disappointment was sure to follow. 30 years of “democracy,” yet little had changed. The elderly still lived in misery; the unqualified still struggled.
Perhaps Communist times were not that bad, after all? There was work for all then; there were no homeless people. There were no “euro-gay” values promoted through EU legislation — everybody knew that one man/one woman was the “right” standard, and all things LGBT should be outlawed (another trait of pro-Russian social media propaganda).
Perhaps Russia was our true “brother,” our “liberator.” Perhaps NATO and the EU are really trying to “enslave” us.
Then Putin propaganda just slotted right into place.
Bulgarians have had 30 years of “freedom” from Communism and still are not living well. This time it is all NATO’s fault. It is all down to the EU.
That same EU, which had just granted them another 3 billion euros for the next 3 years. (We know where most of this money will go, anyway).
Bulgaria is the only EU/NATO member that has not sent any military aid to Ukraine.
Facebook disinformation agents postulate: “No Bulgarian must and will fight against the Russians. They are our brothers and liberators”.
There are consistent fights in Parliament about whether or not the country should stay “neutral.” Passions are heated on social media, with both Putinophiles and Putinophobes abusing each other and refusing to listen.
Putin had got us exactly where he wanted.
This is serious, though.
It is not just propaganda for the brainless and the under-educated to occupy themselves with for lack of things to do.
This misinformation may prove fatal for the little Balkan state.
30% of Putin's followers, egged by two large parties in the Parliament (finding ingenious ways to advantage themselves from both Russia and the EU), have started saying they want a referendum to get Bulgaria out of NATO and out of the EU.
Putin’s deliberate, calculated propaganda, released meticulously and relentlessly over at least 15 years, has done greater damage than could be imagined.
As progressive Bulgarian thinkers have said, “The world may come to pass sooner than you will be able to take the Russian and the Communist out of the soul of the Bulgarian”, and “The Slav identity and the Orthodox Christian cause are the two sheep’s skins, hiding the evil Russian imperial wolf.”
The psychological war on Bulgarians of low (and not-that-low) education backgrounds has, unfortunately, yielded results of Putin’s army of paid disinformers. 30% of Bulgarians currently support Putin and his regime and vouch for taking Bulgaria out of NATO and the EU.
Propaganda is one of many psychological tools to win a war by minimizing physical military acts. It is a subject studied in modern military schools. Russia’s “psychologically-based operations” aim to restore the Soviet Union. For the last 10 years, they have been active to nurture the conditions to justify a military conflict beyond Russia’s borders. Operational disinformation deliberately defames “enemy” leaders to cause people to stop trusting them. Some propaganda pieces even aim to persuade the public to cooperate with the “strategic goals.” At the moment, they are succeeding in antagonizing Bulgarians against their NATO and EU membership and causing them to believe that leaving these treaties would be the optimal route for the nation.
Propaganda targets the natural human attraction to sensation, curious facts, rumors, victim-blaming, self-esteem issues, the need to appear knowledgeable, and having authority. It also takes considers the psychology of the recipient — their level of culture/refinement, education, national mentality, traditions and customs, religion, moral values, and existential fears. The biggest Bulgarian issues, skilfully targeted with Putin’s propaganda, are their low national self-esteem, their constant need to present themselves as better than others, their pride in surviving the Turkish oppression, the irrational fear that their culture, morals, religion, and ethnicity are being threatened, their difficulty living in freedom without a strong centralized power to tell them what to do.
If Bulgaria leaves the two European organizations, most people will likely live in conditions similar to the photo above. And behind another Iron Curtain, under fear, oppression, disinformation, and lies.
On a global scale, this will be a very clever maneuver on Putin’s side — his machinations will have further weakened NATO and the EU and endangered world peace beyond current calculations.
I am praying hard this will not come to pass.