site.btaParliamentary Energy Committee Chair Blames Continue the Change for Financing Putin's Regime with Over 10 Bln in Two Years through Oil Supplies

The parliamentary Energy Committee Chair Delyan Dobrev renewed his attack against Continue the Change (CC) and blamed them of financing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime with more than BGN 10 billion over a period of two years via oil deliveries. At a briefing in Parliament on Monday he said that after the start of the war in Ukraine in February 2022, Bulgaria started buying three-four times more oil than before.

Dobrev was referring to the crude oil purchased by the Lukoil Neftochim Burgas refinery. "Before the war, Lukoil Neftochim Burgas was buying 15 million barrels of Russian oil a year. In the year and ten months since the war in Ukraine, Lukoil Neftochim Burgas has bought about 80 million barrels," Dobrev said.

According to him, the four largest monthly payments were made under the cabinets of CC. He said in July 2022 alone Bulgaria "secured revenue for Putin's regime in the amount of USD 426,168,816."

Continue the Change was part of two governments in the period mentioned by Dobrev - between December 2021 and August 2022 CC co-leader Kiril Petkov was prime minister of a government formed with Democratic Bulgaria, BSP for Bulgaria and There is Such a People, while currently the party, through the CC-DB coalition, is part of a rotation cabinet with GERB-UDF (starting June 2023).

Two caretaker cabinets also had terms in office during the two years since the start of the war in Ukraine – both with Galab Donev as caretaker prime minister and appointed by President Rumen Radev. The first one was in office between August 2022 and February 2023, the second – between February and June 2023.

Kiril Petkov's cabinet was preceded by two other caretaker governments appointed by Radev (May 2021 - December 2021) led by caretaker prime minister Stefan Yanev.

Dobrev was adamant that Bulgaria should have stopped buying Russian oil as soon as war started in Ukraine.

In 2022, the European Commission granted Bulgaria a derogation from the EU embargo on oil imports from Russia due to the country's specific geographic exposure. Dobrev has been consistently urging the revocation of the derogation with immediate effect but Continue the Change argued that such an abrupt move might cause a crisis on the Bulgarian fuel market. 

On December 18, Bulgaria's Parliament voted, 144-0, to pass on first and second reading draft legislation prohibiting the export of fuels produced from Russian oil as from January 1, 2024 and ending the processing of oil originating from Russia by the country's only oil refinery, Russian-controlled Lukoil Neftochim Burgas, as from March 1, 2024. However, the ban on the sale of products derived from Russian crude, has effectively forced the refinery to switch to non-Russian crude even before the formal expiration of the derogation from the EU ban.

"If it were not for Continue the Change and the defenders of this derogation Denkov and [Finance Minister] Assen Vassilev, Putin would not have received the BGN 10 billion," Dobrev argued.