The Russian Embassy in Bulgaria is actively involved in spreading propaganda and disinformation about Ukraine in the Bulgarian information field. A third of all information messages posted on the official pages of the Russian diplomatic mission have signs of propaganda and disinformation. This is evidenced by the results of a study conducted by experts of the "Laboratory of Research and Information Analysis" in the period from September to December 2023.

The topics of the information messages of the Russian Embassy in Bulgaria about Ukraine were aimed at:

discrediting Ukraine, the Ukrainian authorities and the Armed Forces of Ukraine;

justifying the reasons for the invasion of Russian troops into Ukraine by spreading narratives about alleged “Nazism” and “fascism” in Ukraine;

forming the opinion about the lack of subjectivity of Ukraine;

putting pressure on democratic Western society and forming the opinion about the greatness and invincibility of Russia;

disrupting the supply of Western weapons and military equipment necessary to repel Russia’s armed aggression against Ukraine.

To expand the target audience, the Russian diplomatic mission uses affiliated thematic groups on the social network Facebook, through which reposts from the official page of the mission are made. The created network allows reaching a target audience in Bulgaria of up to 400 thousand readers.

The active involvement of the Russian Embassy in conducting information and psychological operations against the population and political leadership of Bulgaria is a gross violation of the norms of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961, which prohibits interference in the internal affairs of the host country.

Details of the study can be found at link.