Bulgarian prosecutors have accused an NGO official of spying for Russia and allegedly providing information aimed at turning the country away from its pro-Western orientation.
Deputy Chief Prosecutor Ivan Geshev said today that Nikolay Malinov, president of the National Russophile Movement, was accused of "putting himself at the service of foreign organizations to work for them as a spy".
If found guilty, Malinov could receive 15 years in prison. He was released on parole but was prohibited from leaving the country.
Gershev said prosecutors found a document prepared by Malinov outlining the steps needed to completely change Bulgaria's geopolitical orientation away from the West and toward Russia.
Bulgarian President Rumen Radev said the charges against Malinov were "very serious" but added that indisputable evidence was needed that he did it.
The charges against Malinov followed a diplomatic spat between Sofia and Moscow sparked by an exhibition the Russian embassy opened last Sunday to mark "75 years since the liberation of Eastern Europe from Nazism".
In an unusually sharp statement, Bulgaria's foreign ministry told the Russian embassy that it does not support the "disputed" historical claim that Bulgaria was liberated by Soviet forces in 1944.
"The bayonets of the Soviet army brought the people of Central and Eastern Europe half a century of repression, suppression of civil conscience, deformed economic development and separation from developed European countries," the Bulgarian ministry wrote in a note, reports AP.
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