Prime Minister in an interview with the 'New York Times': The war in Ukraine will show whether the democratic world can be beaten

Europeans should draw three lessons from the cascade of troubles after the war in Ukraine, Bulgaria’s Prime Minister, Nikolai Denkov, told New York times. The prestigious American newspaper took an interview with the Bulgarian Prime Minister at the Munich Security Conference on February 18.

The war in Ukraine was not just about gray zones between Europe and Russia, but whether the democratic world we value can be beaten, and this is now well understood in Europe, the Bulgarian Prime Minister told journalist Steven Erlanger.

Second, European nations have realized that they must combine their forces in military, not just economic endeavours, to build up their own deterrence, he said. And third, they needed to separate Ukraine’s urgent needs for ammunition and air defense from longer-term strategic goals.

But given the imperialist rhetoric of Russia’s leaders, long term in this case means three to five and maximum 10 years — it is really urgent, Denkov said.

The New York Times article also quoted the views of German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.