"The president's veto on helping Ukraine with armored vehicles will be overridden immediately, so I don't see anything to comment on," Bulgarian Prime Minister Nikolai Denkov said in Shumen, where he was participating in an academic community discussion on the future of higher education.

Later Nikolai Denkov said that the arguments for the presidential veto were not adequate. He recalled that the armoured personnel carriers that will be sent to Ukraine have not come into use for decades, which proves that they are not needed in Bulgaria. ''The argument that they can be used in warfare can also be disputed because if the Bulgarian army is well-equipped, let's say with Stryker fighting vehicles, these armoured personnel carriers would be more of a hindrance than help", Premier Denkov added.

Speaker of the National Assembly, Rosen Zhelyazkov, voiced a similar position: "The Constitution clearly defines the goals of foreign policy and one of them is the establishment of a just international order, so Bulgaria's position on the war in Ukraine is consistent. There is a majority to override the president's veto.”

"President Rumen Radev has once again demonstrated an inadequate position for a head of state of an EU and NATO country", GERB’s position reads. The party states that the majority in the parliament has a consistent Euro-Atlantic policy in support of Ukraine's right to defend its citizens and territories.

According to the chairman of the parliamentary group of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, Delyan Peevski, the decision of the head of state can be described as shameful and therefore the MPs must overcome the veto this week and confirm the support for Ukraine and the Ukrainian people.

According to "We Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria" the veto is political hypocrisy. On the occasion of Rumen Radev's words that the military equipment can also be used by "Civil Defense", MP Ivaylo Mirchev said: "I hope the president does not want to return to those times when APCs were used against protesting Bulgarian citizens.”

BSP would support President Radev's veto, BSP leader Kornelia Ninova said. "The president's motives almost completely coincide with our statements from the parliamentary rostrum. This has been our position from the beginning and it will be so until the end," she added.

• President Radev vetoes sending of old personnel carriers to Ukraine