Do we like them?

Do we like Rumen Radev?

Our score: 4 out of 10. Fighting graft and no personal nastiness found, but a Kremlin-friendly record and a government pushing against gender language sit on the other side.

Radev is a former fighter pilot and air force chief who became Bulgaria's president in 2017 as an independent. He was backed by the Socialists and described by the Associated Press as left-leaning. He is not a career party man, which is part of his pull.

In January 2026 he quit the presidency early, the first Bulgarian president to do that, and the Constitutional Court approved it. He then led his new Progressive Bulgaria party into the April election, which it won outright on an anti-corruption platform. Parliament voted his government into office in May.

The Russia question follows him everywhere. In 2021 the US voiced concern after he said Crimea was Russian in practice, though his office later said it legally belongs to Ukraine. Critics call him Kremlin-friendly, while he rejects the pro-Russian label and calls his stance pro-Bulgarian.

As prime minister, he halted military donations from Bulgaria's armed forces to Ukraine and took the country out of the Coalition of the Willing. He also threatened to veto the EU's 21st Russia sanctions package, though Bulgaria has not blocked earlier ones. Where you land depends on whether you read it as a hard-nosed national interest call or as carrying water for Moscow.

On the harm test, there is nothing in his own words that I could find against LGBTQ+ people, women or migrants. But Adnkronos reported in June that his government has taken positions in the EU Council against gender-identity language, citing the Bulgarian constitution. For a house that backs trans rights, that is a real worry, even though we don't have his own quotes.

On the good side, he won on a promise to take on corruption and judicial capture. Analysts at OSW noted that his MPs did not back an opposition push for a commission on one powerful oligarch's assets, so the jury is out on how hard he'll bite. It's early days, and the record is thin on scandals either way.