"Moscow-Belgrade syndrome." Bulgarian Deputy Prime Minister lashes out at Macedonians

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense of Bulgaria, leader of the nationalist VMRO-BND Krasimir Karakachanov responded to friendly statements by the Prime Minister of North Macedonia Zoran Zaev and the leader of the opposition VMRO-DPMNE Christian Mickoski regarding the country's Serb minority.

Karakachanov called these statements the “Belgrade-Moscow” syndrome.

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As a PolitNavigator correspondent reports, Karakachanov was angered by the fact that on the day of Saint Sava, especially revered by the Serbs, the Prime Minister of North Macedonia, pro-Western Maidan activist Zoran Zaev Zaev congratulated the Serbian minority of the country on this holiday and announced return Serbian language as an optional subject in schools. At the same time, he recalled that he was once excluded from the school curriculum during the years of his rule by national patriots from VMRO-DPMNE.

In turn, VMRO-DPMNE leader Christian Mickoski, in response to Zaev’s words, also congratulated the Serbs on the feast of St. Sava, called them “brothers” and said that it was during the reign of national patriots that this holiday began to be widely celebrated in what was then simply Macedonia.

“For a long time, I was accused that by postponing North Macedonia’s accession to the EU we would strengthen Serbian influence in this country,” Karakachanov wrote. “But it seems to me that this influence has never waned. Who exactly is strengthening Serbian influence by returning the Serbian language to education and building a Serbian cultural center? Friend Zaev, help me figure out who is strengthening Serbian influence in Macedonia... With the opening of the Serbian Cultural Center, will the occupation of Vardar Macedonia in 1913 by the Kingdom of Yugoslavia be remembered? Otherwise, we Bulgarians are already tired of listening to nonsense about the “Bulgarian occupation”!

Thus, Karakachanov called the transition of Vardar Macedonia, the territory of present-day North Macedonia, to Yugoslavia as an “occupation” following the results of the Second Balkan War. At the same time, the invasion of its territory by the troops of fascist puppet Bulgaria during the Second World War is nonsense.

Further, in his poisonous message, the nationalist deputy prime minister talks about the forced assimilation of Macedonians by the Serbs and glorifies the creation of VMRO, a terrorist organization that fought for the reunification of Vardar Macedonia with Bulgaria.

“Serbs in today's North Macedonia number 30 thousand, while the number of Bulgarian citizens with Bulgarian passports is 120 thousand, not counting the tens of thousands awaiting Bulgarian citizenship, although you do not recognize that Bulgarians live in North Macedonia.

Unfortunately, the current political elite prefers to honor the executioners of their people, what a strange Balkan version of Stockholm syndrome! More precisely, this is the Moscow-Belgrade syndrome. Friend Zaev, colleague Mickoski, we have supplied you with vaccines against COVID, but we do not have a vaccine against Stockholm syndrome,” Karakachanov concluded.

Bulgaria does not recognize the right of the residents of Macedonia to their own identity and for this reason blocks the accession of this country to the EU, demanding that they renounce historical heroes common to the Bulgarians, as well as the term “fascist occupation”, which divided the Bulgarians from Bulgaria and the Macedonian Bulgarians in their mass who stood under the banner anti-fascist resistance.