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Sofia Globe reported on February 14th that “the Military District Prosecutor’s Office — Sofia has resubmitted to the Sofia Military Court charges against a group of six people, led by a former Military Intelligence officer, that allegedly spied for Russia, according to a statement by the Prosecutor’s Office on February 14. The allegations against the group were first announced in March 2021, as The Sofia Globe reported at the time. There has been one court hearing on the case, which was returned to prosecutors for further processing. As reported in March 2021, the accused are the alleged head of the spy ring, Ivan Iliev, a former senior Military Intelligence officer. Others are Lyubomir Medarov, head of the classified information registry in Parliament, Colonel Petar Petrov, of the the Defence Ministry’s budget directorate, Galina Ilieva, a Bulgarian-Russian dual national who is Iliev’s wife and who is alleged to have been the go-between between the group and the Russian embassy in Sofia, and two unnamed Military Intelligence officers. The Prosecutor’s Office statement said that the six are being prosecuted for being members of an espionage group, for collecting state secrets with the purpose of providing them to a foreign state, and for placing themselves in the service of a foreign state to serve as spies. According to the evidence collected during pre-trial proceedings, three of the accused provided military classified information to a foreign state, the statement said. The statement said that the leader of the group had for years selected individuals holding key positions with access to classified information of Bulgaria and its Nato and EU partners.”

On February 5th Balkan Insight reported that “a police officer working in Bulgaria’s National Service for Combating Organised Crime and an employee of the state security agency were arrested on Monday for allegedly spying for Russia, Bulgarian National Television reported. The operation in the national anti-organised crime service took place on Monday morning. “This individual was passing sensitive information for months, for a bit less than a year. There’s a possibility of more consequences and arrests,’ the general secretary of the Ministry of Interior, Zhivko Kotzev, said. He expressed sorrow that the case concerns a police officer. The second arrest was initiated at the state national security agency a few hours later. There are fewer details as yet. But the Ministry of Interior has clarified that both individuals were communicating with a Russian who has been designated persona non grata and is a former employee of the Russian embassy in Sofia. According to Nova TV, the police was activated by international security services. On January 31, Democratic Bulgaria MP Atanas Atanasov accused the security agency of not acting against a channel for infiltrating Russian spies through easily granted Bulgarian citizenship, for which it has full details. Atanasov, director of the agency from 1998–2001, said the scheme is organised by a Russian-Ukrainian in Moscow and operates under President Rumen Radev’s protection. Previously, in July, General Prosecutor Borislav Sarafov, then recently appointed to the post, said that too many terrorism and espionage charges had been investigated for years without success or adequate consequences. Sarafov said that one of those pending cases concerned espionage within national security structures.”

Following this week’s story #53, on November 3rd Perild reported that “the Russian Foreign Ministry ordered the chief correspondent of the Bulgarian National Radio in Moscow, Angel Grigorov, to surrender his accreditation certificate and leave Russia. This was done as a response to the expulsion of Russian journalist Alexander Gatsak by the Bulgarian authorities, the department explained. “Guided by the principles of media freedom and pragmatic interaction, the Russian side will be ready to consider the possibility of resuming the activities of the Bulgarian National Radio correspondent A. Grigorov in Russia if the Bulgarian government makes a positive decision on the accreditation of the Rossiyskaya Gazeta journalist in Sofia,” the Foreign Ministry noted RF. Bulgarian authorities extradited Alexander Gatsak, an employee of Rossiyskaya Gazeta in Sofia, on November 1st. The country’s State National Security Agency (GANB) claimed that the Russian journalist was engaged in intelligence activities and posed a threat to the country’s security. On October 17, Gatsak, as Rossiyskaya Gazeta wrote, was summoned to the Migration Department of the Bulgarian Ministry of Internal Affairs to receive notification of the cancellation of his accreditation, expulsion from the country and a ban on entry and stay in the territory of the European Union member states. When the journalist was on his way to the migration service, they called him and demanded that he come to the State Security Service, but he did not show up there. After this, Gatsak, as noted by Bulgarian National Television, stayed on the territory of the Russian Embassy in Sofia, and then left for Russia.”

Balkan Insight reported on September 21st that “Bulgaria on Thursday expelled the abbot of the Russian Orthodox Church, Archimandrite Vasian, as well as two other clerics of the St. Nikolay Mirlikiskii Chudtovorets church in Sofia, known locally as the ‘Russian Church’. The information was initially confirmed by the Russian embassy in Sofia, which condemned the expulsions. “We are outraged by the fact and the way the decision was taken by the Bulgarian side,” the embassy said in a statement. Bulgarian officials have yet to comment, but the State Agency for National Security later announced that three individuals, one with Russian citizenship and two from Belarus, have been expelled for using “hybrid strategies” to sustain Russia’s influence and geopolitical interests. Archimandrite Vasian’s interests seem not have been limited to Bulgaria. According to North Macedonia media, he was also banned from entering North Macedonia on September 15.”

On June 28th, the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that 70 staff members of the Russian diplomatic mission in Bulgaria were declared Persona Non Grata (PNG), and had to immediately leave the country. Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov said: “today we have expelled 70 Russian diplomats. Many of them have worked directly for intelligence services and their diplomatic role has been more like a cover.”

Following week 9 (story #32) disruption of a Russian espionage network by Bulgaria’s State Agency for National Security (SANS) and the expulsion of two Russian GRU officers operating under diplomatic cover, on Friday, March 18th, Bulgaria expelled ten more Russian diplomats from the Russian Embassy in Sofia. This time the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated only that they performed “activities deemed incompatible with their diplomatic status” without providing further details.