Parliament to vote on Defence Minister Yanev's resignation Tuesday, Todor Tagarev nominated to replace him

The proposal of "We Continue the Change" (WCC) for a new Minister of Defence is Todor Tagarev, Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Kiril Petkov announced after today's cabinet meeting, on February 28. Minister Stefan Yanev's resignation will be voted at an extraordinary sitting of the Parliament tomorrow.

PM Kiril Petkov: I will demand Defence Minister Yanev's resignation today

"Todor Tagarev is known to the public, he has been in a very good public role recently. This is the choice of WCC within the coalition agreement that we have. Each of the coalition parties gives its proposal and has the right to propose its candidates. This will be the candidate of “We Continue the Change” tomorrow," the Prime Minister said.

190 Bulgarians are being evacuated from Kyiv in buses, Petkov added. The green corridor was implemented with the help of the Foreign Ministry and Bulgaria’s military intelligence.

Petkov said it was not in Bulgaria's national interest not to take a position on what was happening in Ukraine.

"Nobody can say what should be done in relation to Bulgaria, nobody can draw us on a napkin, talk about a sphere of influence, we are an independent country and we can decide what and how to do it. We are in the EU and I am glad that we have the full freedom to speak in one voice with all countries", PM said.

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Professor Todor Tagarev is a former caretaker Minister of Defence in the government headed by Marin Raikov in 2013. Prior to that, he served as Director for Defence Planning and as a National Armaments Director at the Bulgarian Ministry of Defence.

From 2005 to 2008, he was a member of the NATO Research and Technology Board and a national representative on its Systems Analysis and Research Panel.

In 2016 Tagarev was appointed head of the Defence Institute, but a year later he was dismised from the post by Stefan Yanev himself who at the time was caretaker defence minister.

Prof. Todor Tagarev has considerable experience in leading and participating in international and national research on security and defence issues. His publications have been translated into Azerbaijani, Arabic, Armenian, Bahasa, Georgian, Dari, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Ukrainian, Hungarian and French.

Currently Professor Tagarev leads both the IT for Security Department and the Centre for Security and Defence Management at the Institute of Information and Communication Technologies, part of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.