Bulgaria 'Stage of Hybrid War over Ukraine,' Official Report Says

Politics » DEFENSE | March 26, 2015, Thursday // 11:41
Bulgaria: Bulgaria 'Stage of Hybrid War over Ukraine,' Official Report Says The document argues that attempts at manipulation and attacks beyond conventional means are ongoing in Bulgaria alongside the conflict in Ukraine. Photo by EPA/BGNES

Information campaigns and cyber attacks carried out on the sidelines of the conflict in Ukraine are an example of a "new type of fighting a war", Bulgaria's Defense Ministry points out in a document.

Its recently published Report on the state of the armed forces in 2014 [BG], the ministry says it is concerned over "attempts at manipulation of public opinion through disinformation, propaganda campaigns, media manipulation, using social networks for disinformation, attempts of populist party leaders to manipulate groups of voters and to stir confusion among the population, etc."

On Wednesday Parliament passed the text after a closed-doors session. Together with the Ukrainian developments, it points to budget shortfall and to the state of the army as issues of concern.

According to the document, the security environment in 2014 was marked by "dynamic and controversial changes which generated risks that are hard to predict and threats to international and national security of the Republic of Bulgaria."

The crisis in Ukraine and the dynamics of "hybrid war" (in the text it is always in quotation marks) poses risks to the national security system along with the influx of asylum seekers that could potentially include people affiliated to terrorist or criminal organizations, the document warns further.

It adds that development of coordination and improvement of interaction mechanisms among defense and security-related institutions is "a necessary condition to successfully cope with contemporary challenges, including "hybrid war" and terrorism".

Also, "the crisis in Ukraine is an example for the growing vulnerability of the states when instruments of the hybrid war are effectively used to achieve political ends."

This is the second reference to a "hybrid war" in a Bulgarian defense document over the past months. The first text was included in a report called "Bulgaria in NATO and in European Defense 2020" (note: Novinite used the name "Outlook 2020" for the working paper before a final version, translated into English, was uploaded on the ministry's website).

Prepared under an interim government in August 2014, an initial version of the text stated that there are threats facing Bulgaria related to “hybrid wars, energy dependence, Russian propaganda, failed states, terrorism and migration”.

However, the document was edited after being subject to much controversy both in Bulgaria and abroad (mostly in Russia), raising tensions between then-PM Georgi Bliznashki and interim Defense Minister Velizar Shalamanov.

This time, Russia is mentioned only six times throughout the document: three times in relation to Crimea and broader Ukraine-related developments, once regarding the maintenance of Russian-made aircraft used by the Bulgarian Air Force, and two when discussing multilateral diplomacy.

 

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Tags: Ukraine, Bulgaria, Russia, "hybrid war"

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