The large-scaled Russian-sponsored energy projects on the Balkans are economically unfeasible, and the Russian leadership is well-aware of this fact.

This was said by the Rumen Kanchev, Associate Professor in Geopolitics and Strategic Studies at New Bulgarian University, in an interview for Novinite.com.

Professor Kanchev has pointed out that the Kremlin had been putting forth its large-scale energy projects where Bulgaria is a key participant - the South Stream gas pipeline, the Burgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipeline, the Belene Nuclear Plant - solely as a way of projecting geopolitical influence, which is consistence with Putin's strategy for using Russia's energy resources as an instrument for foreign policy pressure.

Kanchev, who recently published the book "Why Russia Does Not Pursue a Western-Style Democracy: Kremlin's Geopolitical Ambitions at the Beginning of the 21st Century", believes that in a time of raging financial crisis the involvement with the costly Russian sponsored projects is the last thing that Bulgaria needed.

He has stressed the fact that the construction of the Belene Nuclear Power Plant might cost up to EUR 12-14 B, and that by committing to it, Bulgaria would have to go in deep debt, whereas the Burgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipeline would wipe out the tourism industry on Bulgaria's southern Black Sea coast.

Professor Kanchev has pointed out that if agreements the previous Bulgarian government signed with the Russians were made public, this would show that the country for which the energy projects in question have strategic importance was Russia, not Bulgaria. He expects that the new Bulgarian government of the GERB party and PM Boyko Borisov towards Russia is going to be more "pragmatic".

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