Russia’s Foreign Ministry has expressed serious concern about claims of Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev that Russia is an aggressive and nationalist country.

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Alexander Lukasevic, as cited by ITAR-TASS, condemned Plevneliev’s comments in an interview for German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

In the interview, published on October 4, Plevneliev is asked to elaborate on a report of Bulgaria’s Defense Ministry, presented by him at a NATO summit in Wales, which refers to "total propaganda of Russian politics" and "open information warfare" against Bulgaria.

Plevneliev says that “we all want to see a country which has produced Tchaikovsky, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky as a partner. However, facts show that we are dealing with a different Russia nowadays – a nationalist, aggressive state ruled by a President who sees Europe as an opponent, not a partner.”

Lukasevic argues that Bulgaria’s head of state is using inadmissible rhetoric against Moscow to the benefit of a pro-Western conjuncture that ignores reality and neglects centuries-old traditions of friendly relations and cooperation between the brotherly peoples of Russia and Bulgaria.

He underscores that “a Bulgarian politician of such high rank turns a blind eye to the persistent and consistent diplomatic efforts of Russia and President Vladimir Putin to unblock the crisis in Ukraine.”

“It is obvious that we are dealing with a deliberately distorted and selective approach to the assessment of Russia's foreign policy in Ukraine,” Lukasevic states.

He insists that the allegations of the Bulgarian President have nothing to do with the tasks of bilateral cooperation and with the prevailing attitude among Bulgarians in favor of developing partnership with Russia.

Moscow's comments came just a day after the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded to a remark by Russian Deputy PM Dmitry Rogozin, who wrote on Twitter that Bulgaria's caretaker PM Georgi Bliznashki had betrayed Russia.

The Foreign Ministry retorted Bulgaria does not need to explain its sovereign decisions to Russia.

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