site.btaMEP Andrey Novakov Meets with Bulgarians in Ukraine

MEP Andrey Novakov (EPP/GERB) met with members of the Bulgarian communities in the Ukrainian provinces of Odesa, Mykolaiv and Kirovohrad. The meeting took place at the Bulgarian Consulate General in the City of Odesa.

Novakov visited the Black Sea port last week together with other MEPs in connection with the security situation in Ukrainian border areas. His meeting with the Bulgarian communities in the three provinces involved 25 representatives of Bulgarian NGOs and Sunday schools in Ukraine.

Consul General Svetoslav Ivanov said in a speech that Bulgaria supported Ukraine at the very beginning of the Russian invasion and condemned Moscow’s aggression, and the support continues at the political, economic, financial and humanitarian levels.

Novakov noted that Bulgaria was one of the first countries to assist Ukrainian refugees and the Ukrainian state. “At the start of the war, we Bulgarians were the first to open our hearts and our homes for refugees from Ukraine. There are still tens of thousands of them in Bulgaria, where they have found shelter. The EU has never stopped supporting Ukraine,” Novakov said.

He spoke about how impressed he was that expatriates in Ukraine preserved their Bulgarian self-awareness, language and culture over the past 200 years. He recalled that when he visited Bolhrad and the local high school a few years ago, he felt the Bulgarian atmosphere of the Ukrainian town, and now he gets a sense of it once more here in Odesa. “I feel Bulgarian here as much as I do in Bulgaria,” Novakov stated.

“You can rest assured that Bulgaria has not forgotten you just like you keep Bulgaria in your hearts. The public discourse about Bessarabian Bulgarians in Ukraine and Moldova has been rather intense since the democratic changes of 1989,” he said.

Novakov delivered books in Bulgarian to the expatriate organizations. He invited representatives of the Bulgarian community in Ukraine to visit the European Parliament.

Odesa State Agrarian University Rector Mykhailo Broshkov, who is of Bulgarian descent, said that after the war Bulgaria could establish a rehabilitation centre in Bolhrad for wounded people, among whom there are many Bessarabian Bulgarians. He noted that the Netherlands is currently building such a centre in Bolhrad.