site.btaPresident Radev at Economist Government Roundtable: "Question Is Not Whether but When Ukraine Will Join NATO"

The question is when - not whether - Ukraine will join NATO, President Rumen Radev said at the opening of the at the 28th Annual Economist Government Roundtable in Athens on Tuesday. Radev is on a working visit in Greece where the forum is traditionally held.

"I believe that the Summit decisions by NATO and by NATO-Ukraine Council represent a solid bridge towards future Ukraine membership in NATO. All the allies so far have confirmed their strong commitment to support Ukraine membership in the Alliance. The question is not whether, the question is when. And the answer will depend as well as on the development on the battlefield, on the possibility to settle peace, sustainable and just peace. Of course, Ukraine is a sovereign country and has the freedom to decide," the head of State said.

He was asked whether Bulgaria supports the Ukrainian membership in NATO and if so in what timeframe.

He also said in his opening remarks, "I am sure that no one in this room two and a half years ago could ever imagine that we may witness full scale devastating war in Europe and today’s tragic events in the Middle East reminding us how volatile our neighbourhood is and how fragile the peace is. 

He argued that against this global landscape, the major objectives of the EU is to deliver security, stability and prosperity to all its citizens as well as to the neighbourhood. "To be able to shape our future depends heavily to our ability to sustain and develop this role and vision of the EU, to strengthen our security and defense and to develop a strategy to bring back peace in Europe. Every day of the Russian war in Ukraine is a growing risk to the world peace. This war has become already a war of attrition, of global economic clash, generating tremendous human suffering and material damage, draining our economic and social systems, feeding political instability and populism," he said.

He reiterated that from the very first day of the Russian military aggression Bulgaria has condemned it and has become a part of the common EU efforts to comprehensively support Ukraine and to turn Ukraine into a candidate for EU membership. 

The President argued that achieving the goals calls for seeking answers to hard questions - not avoid them. "This war obviously has challenged our security and defense architecture, our defense industrial readiness, our unity and solidarity. But above all I believe this war has challenged our critical thinking, our ability to profoundly analyze and assess all the strategic and operational aspects and risks, to identify 'the strategic center of gravity of the opponent', to use the words of [Prussian military theorist Clausewitz 200 years ago, be it the Russian field forces, the lines of communication, the Russian economy and military industry, the leadership of the state, its ability to avoid sanctions and to build strong partnerships with the countries from the Global South."

Radev further said that the war "challenged our ability to define feasible political objectives and to translate them into a strategy. It also challenged our ability to define the desired and state and what does victory mean. And also to develop our strategy using all the available instruments – military, economic and diplomatic." 

He went on to catalogue what he called "examples of strategic misestimates" the war has revealed. In one, the Russian leadership underestimated the will of the Ukrainian people to resist and fight for their freedom and sovereignty. "In addition Russian general staff crashed in translating the political objectives like demilitarization and denazification into feasible strategy. As a result its military was humiliated and beaten in the first phase of the war. We on the other side underestimated the resilience and capacity of the Russian economy and military industry. All of us remember profound analyses by many leading experts and politicians that under the heavy sanctions the Russian economy would collapse in a few months, even that the Russian federation would fall apart. Nothing like that happened."

He pointed out that the overall EU economic growth for the last year is "far below the Russian economic growth". "I don’t know if the declared Russian growth of 3,6% is true, but it is true that Russian military industry today produces far more shells and essential military equipment than all of us together. The other example – the Ukrainian leadership encouraged by many ally experts and leaders, underestimated some of the basic principles of the operational art, which demand certain conditions like advantage in man power, equipment and air dominance to launch any offensive operation. We know the result – the famous long advertised Ukrainian counteroffensive turned into tremendous loss of human lives and material with no progress on the contrary. Russia succeeded to gain the operational initiative."

He went on to call for reassessing the approach to the war and turning back to diplomacy and negotiations.

"We need as well to further develop our concept of strategic economy," he said. "This concept has evolved over the past few years under the pressure of rapidly degrading global security circumstances. The essences of this concept is to provide us the ability to shape the strategic environment in line with our strategic objectives providing security, stability and peace to all our citizens. [...] We need to maintain our resilience and freedom of action to achieve this highly ambitious goal. The concept of strategic autonomy requires reinforcing most of all the overall EU long term global competitiveness. This is a top priority. To strengthen your industrial base in line with green and digital transition securing the supply and autonomous production of affordable and clean energy, securing the supply of critical raw materials, boosting innovations, technology, space and artificial intelligence, further develop our transport, digital and energy connectivity, and most of all to further develop and strengthen our defense industrial base and overcome our fragmentation talking about defense industry. It is true that we have witnessed a significant progress in many of these areas and many other positive and important initiatives are underway especially regarding the development of the legal framework like Net Zero Industry Act, Critical Raw Materials Act, European chips act, Artificial Intelligence Act, the European defense industry and strategy and the European defense industry program. All of them provide a huge step forward and I do believe that very soon we can witness some even better specific results," President Radev concluded.

In the context of his remarks about miscalculations during the war, he was asked if Europe is still guilty of miscalculating today and if so where he thinks recalibration of attitude and expectations is needed. 

Radev said that first of all it is vitally important to understand "what kind warfare we face today". "This war is a typical example of 'boots on the ground' warfare. It is a fight for every inch of territory. And the most strategic aspect in this war is not the weapons and munitions, but the people – training, equipment, motivation and numbers. Talking about numbers, we admire, all of us, the courage and commitment of the Ukrainian people, but the numbers comparison show advantage of the Russian side. And this war has developed its own character and dynamics. If we continue keeping this war’s dynamic without any major change, we could face a point in time when Ukraine could run out of people to defend itself, not to speak about reaching its main goal: to push Russian military back to the borders of 1991. And we need to realize that we may face a tremendous challenge, we may face a very hard political and moral dilemma. On the one hand I can understand the concerns of some political leaders that if we don’t support Ukraine with everything, including troops, we betray our values. [...] On the other hand we have to be clear that NATO should and will not enter this war, especially with troops on the ground." 

Daniel Franklin, the Economist executive editor and US editor, asked President Radev about his expectations for the admission of Bulgaria and Romania to the Schengen area by land. The President said that Bulgaria met all the technical criteria 13 years ago. "I believe that keeping Bulgaria and Romania out of [full] Schengen does not contribute to the stability and prosperity of Europe, nor to the military mobility we need in times of crisis and war."

The President also noted the crucial role of the strategic partnership between Bulgaria and Greece. "We have invested a lot to improve our connectivity and thus engage with Europe's efforts for stability and prosperity," he said.

Later today, the Bulgarian head of State is expected to hold working meetings with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and with the country's President Katerina Sakellaropoulou.