President Radev on the War in Ukraine: Seeking a Military Solution is a Losing Proposition, Europe Should Support the U.S.

The insistence on seeking a military solution is a losing proposition. Europe should support the efforts of the United States to find the best possible resolution. This is how President Rumen Radev commented on the third anniversary of the war in Ukraine. The President attended the presentation of an analysis on the state of the armed forces. The meeting was also attended by Chief of Defence, Admiral Emil Eftimov, Minister of Defence Atanas Zapryanov, senior command staff of the Bulgarian Army, and national representatives in NATO and EU command structures.

According to Radev, Europe can only be weakened by the mistakes of its own decisions.

"First, I would like to congratulate the military leadership for the comprehensive and objective analysis of the state and preparedness of the armed forces. Everything must be viewed through the lens of the security environment. And we are witnessing a change in the security environment unprecedented in scale and dynamics of growing unpredictability in the geopolitical space. Just a week ago, the Munich Security Conference caused a real shake-up in the Euro-Atlantic space. Since last night, you can see what is happening at the UN Security Council General Assembly, which your colleagues from CNN have already described as a new dividing line in the Euro-Atlantic space, and we see that there is a different assessment of the war in Ukraine and different approaches to resolving this conflict from the US on the one hand and from the European partners on the other.

The debate is emerging over the potential refocusing of the United States from the Euro-Atlantic space to the Pacific region. The U.S. insists on a quick resolution of the conflict through diplomacy.

What we also saw yesterday with the visit of European leaders to Ukraine is the other approach - continuing military action and seeking through it to bring Ukraine into a position of strength for possible further negotiations. But the entire course of the war so far shows that this is a utopian hope; it will lead to more casualties, further destruction, and devastation of Ukraine, the costs of which Europe will eventually have to pay. Europe is most interested in participating in the peace process and in leading because it will rebuild Ukraine," President Rumen Radev stressed.