On Jan. 1, Bulgaria grew to become the eurozone’s twenty first member when it gave up its 145-year-old forex, the lev, for the euro. In Sofia and Brussels, this improvement was roundly celebrated as one other step within the European Union’s financial and political integration.
What went largely unnoticed, nevertheless, is the extent to which Bulgaria’s adoption of the euro represents a strategic blow for the Kremlin. After years of sustained effort to dam Sofia from becoming a member of the eurozone, Moscow failed to forestall a choice that anchors Bulgaria extra deeply and irreversibly inside the European mission. The forex change not solely uncovered the bounds of Russia’s hybrid techniques but in addition narrowed its remaining leverage within the nation.
On Jan. 1, Bulgaria grew to become the eurozone’s twenty first member when it gave up its 145-year-old forex, the lev, for the euro. In Sofia and Brussels, this improvement was roundly celebrated as one other step within the European Union’s financial and political integration.
What went largely unnoticed, nevertheless, is the extent to which Bulgaria’s adoption of the euro represents a strategic blow for the Kremlin. After years of sustained effort to dam Sofia from becoming a member of the eurozone, Moscow failed to forestall a choice that anchors Bulgaria extra deeply and irreversibly inside the European mission. The forex change not solely uncovered the bounds of Russia’s hybrid techniques but in addition narrowed its remaining leverage within the nation.
Russia has by no means totally accepted Bulgaria’s strategic realignment. As a substitute, it has continued to deal with Bulgaria as contested floor, drawing on historic, cultural, non secular, and financial ties—together with vitality dependence—to be able to maintain the nation inside what Russia perceives as its sphere of affect. A part of the Kremlin’s affect extends by the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, which maintains shut ties with the Russian Orthodox Church; Moscow has lengthy used the latter as a soft-power instrument to advertise notions of Slavic and Orthodox brotherhood. For a lot of its fashionable historical past, Bulgaria was Russia’s most stalwart European ally, which left Moscow to exert its lingering affect even after Sofia’s entry into Western establishments, together with NATO and the European Union.
From the Kremlin’s perspective, eurozone enlargement is just not a impartial financial course of. Seen from Moscow, any deepening of EU integration constrains its potential to take advantage of bilateral dependencies, apply selective stress, create divisions inside the bloc, and domesticate grey zones of affect on the EU’s japanese flank. Nations that undertake the euro grow to be extra carefully tied to at least one one other economically, financially, and politically, lowering alternatives for outdoor manipulation. Whereas Bulgaria will stay susceptible—in spite of everything, Slovakia’s use of the euro hasn’t prevented its authorities from aligning with the Kremlin when EU members vote on points affecting Russia—eurozone membership limits the avenues by which Moscow has traditionally sought to affect Euro-Atlantic establishments.
Analysts had good motive to doubt that Sofia would full the ultimate two steps of EU integration, particularly becoming a member of the Schengen space of borderless journey and the eurozone. Though Bulgaria has been an EU member since 2007, it continued to battle with excessive inflation and corruption. Whereas Bulgaria and Croatia entered the European Trade Price Mechanism—the obligatory two-year transition interval earlier than euro adoption—on the similar time in July 2020, their trajectories quickly diverged. Croatia superior largely on schedule and adopted the euro in 2023. Bulgaria, in contrast, repeatedly postponed its goal date—first to 2024 after which to 2025, earlier than in the end becoming a member of in 2026.
These delays weren’t merely technical, corresponding to inflation exceeding the EU-mandated threshold. They have been additionally pushed by a surge in political and public qualms about deeper EU integration—an upswell of resistance that was actively fueled by Russian-linked affect operations and Bulgarian proxy actors aiding the Kremlin. Thus, Bulgaria’s stalled path to adopting the euro grew to become a visual indicator of Russia’s potential to impede, although not in the end forestall, EU integration.
Within the lead-up to euro adoption, Moscow relied on a well-recognized toolkit of interference.
First, Russian-linked actors carried out intensive disinformation campaigns geared toward shaping public opinion towards the euro. Russia used covert monetary networks to spend tens of tens of millions of euros on propaganda and interference in Bulgaria. Social media accounts linked to Russia or its Bulgarian proxies, in addition to sympathetic conventional media retailers, amplified alarmist and infrequently demonstrably false claims. These claims included the concept that euro adoption would set off runaway inflation, result in the confiscation of residents’ financial savings, strip Bulgaria of its nationwide identification, and topic the nation to the dictates of Brussels. These narratives helped deepen societal division over euro adoption and cut back public help. A Eurobarometer ballot carried out in late 2025 confirmed a plurality of 49 p.c of Bulgarians against the frequent forex, with solely 42 p.c in favor.
Second, brazenly pro-Russian forces in Bulgaria, most notably the far-right nationalist Revival get together, echoed and legitimized these narratives. Revival, which has an official cooperation settlement with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia get together, grew to become essentially the most seen home opponent of euro adoption. The get together organized anti-euro rallies and protests, a few of which featured Russian flags. Final February, get together members stormed the EU mission in Sofia, throwing firecrackers, crimson paint, and Molotov cocktails on the constructing and setting its entrance door on fireplace. Revival get together leaders repeatedly warned of an financial collapse just like that skilled by Greece throughout the euro debt disaster, regardless of postcrisis eurozone reforms and Bulgaria’s markedly completely different fiscal place. Revival additionally pushed for a nationwide referendum on euro adoption, a transfer rejected by parliament as incompatible with Bulgaria’s treaty commitments to the EU. Revival parliamentarians unfold conspiracy theories, together with claims that Brussels was planning to grab Bulgarians’ financial savings and that the confiscated funds can be used for navy tasks.
Third, these efforts fed right into a broader technique of institutional erosion. By casting doubt on the motives and competence of European establishments and Bulgaria’s personal governing elites, Russian-linked campaigns sought to deepen cynicism, polarize society, and weaken belief within the democratic course of. Bulgaria’s power political instability, characterised by short-lived governments, fragmented coalitions, and 7 snap parliamentary elections in 4 years, made the nation significantly susceptible to Russian interference. Persistent governance crises created fertile floor for Euroskeptic messaging and for claims that integration with the EU was being imposed with out common consent.
Regardless of this sturdy and sustained stress, Bulgaria’s pro-European parliamentary majority in the end delivered. Successive governments that included the strongly pro-EU, anti-corruption coalition We Proceed the Change-Democratic Bulgaria accomplished the mandatory authorized and technical steps required for adopting the euro. Key establishments withstood makes an attempt to politicize or derail the method. The nation’s entry into the eurozone serves as a reminder that hybrid interference, whereas potent and disruptive, doesn’t inevitably decide outcomes—particularly when political will and institutional continuity exist.
Nevertheless, that is unlikely to mark the tip of the battle. If something, the Kremlin’s concentrate on Bulgaria might intensify within the coming months. The nation is anticipated to carry one other snap election later this yr, which is able to reopen alternatives for overseas affect and home destabilization. On the similar time, pro-Russian actors corresponding to Revival will search to take advantage of any short-term difficulties related to the transition to the euro—corresponding to worth changes, administrative friction, and public confusion—to validate their earlier warnings and blame the EU.
On this sense, Bulgaria’s adoption of the euro is not only a political success but in addition a strategic take a look at. Whether or not it strengthens public confidence in European integration or turns into one other battleground for disinformation will rely on how successfully the Bulgarian authorities and EU establishments handle the transition and talk its advantages. For now, nevertheless, Jan. 1 was a transparent setback for Moscow’s ambitions to divide and weaken the EU. It’s a sign that the EU’s gravitational pull stays formidable regardless of its contestation.
