Deputy Speaker of Bulgarian parliament added to database of Ukraine's enemies: Foreign Minister contacts Ukrainian ambassador

Mariya Gabriel, the Bulgarian Minister of Foreign Affairs, has held a telephone conversation with Olesia Ilashchuk, the Ukrainian Ambassador to Bulgaria. The officials discussed the Internet portal Myrotvorets (Peacemaker) and the names of the Bulgarian journalists and politicians that appear there. (Myrotvorets, Ukrainian for "peacemaker", is a Ukrainian website that publishes a running list (and sometimes personal information) of people whom the authors consider to be enemies of Ukraine – ed.).

Source: European Pravda with reference to the website of the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry

Details: Gabriel said during the conversation that the information about "the inclusion of Bulgarian citizens in the databases of persons identified as Ukraine’s enemies causes surprise and concern".

The ambassador replied and assured the Bulgarian Foreign Minister that "the activity of the Myrotvorets public organisation is in no way connected with the work of Ukraine’s state institutions and does not reflect the official policy of the Ukrainian state".

"An agreement was reached during the talks that this case should be resolved between the competent authorities of the two countries, and Minister Gabriel and Ambassador Ilashchuk agreed on the need to maintain close coordination," the ministry said.

At the beginning of the week, Elena Yoncheva, a Bulgarian MEP, stated that she was in the Myrotvorets database. As a journalist, Yencheva travelled in particular to North Korea, "filmed documentaries about events in Kyiv and the situation in eastern Ukraine" in 2013 and 2014, and she also travelled to the Friends of Crimea Forum conference in Russian-occupied Yalta in 2017.

The name of Bulgarian journalist Dilyana Gaytandzhieva, who spread fake news about "biolaboratories in Ukraine", and Kristian Vigenin, the current Deputy Speaker in the Bulgarian Parliament from the Bulgarian Socialist Party, were also found in the Myrotvorets database. Vigenin is accused of refusing to support the supply of weapons and ammunition to Ukraine, as well as of "not taking a firm position and not supporting any of the parties clearly" during the annexation of Crimea in 2014.

On Thursday, 20 July, parliamentary commissions and special services discussed the situation with Myrotvorets, agreeing to help restrict the website's work on international servers.

The Embassy of Ukraine in Bulgaria stated separately that Myrotvorets’ activities are in no way connected with Ukraine’s state institutions operations and they do not reflect the official policy of the Ukrainian state.

For reference. Myrotvorets, a non-governmental organisation, was created in 2014 to investigate "signs of crimes against Ukraine's national security, peace, human security and international legal order". Among other things, the organisation maintains the Chystylyshche (Purgatory) database, a list of people whose activities, according to the authors, pose a threat to Ukraine’s national security.

Background: 

• Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orbán, Croatian President Zoran Milanović, European Commissioner for Enlargement Olivér Várhelyi and others have previously been added to the Purgatory database. Their personal data is published there, including residential addresses and contact information, if available.
• International partners have repeatedly called on Ukraine to take measures against the Myrotvorets website. The European Parliament, in a resolution on the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement in 2021, called on Kyiv to block the portal as an example of an "extremist group that incites hatred".

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