English
We have well founded reason to believe that a coordination operation is taking place to discredit the Prime Minister, Hristijan Mickoski, said VMRO-DPMNE member of Parliament Mile Lefkov at a press conference today. The conference took place after an obscure Bulgarian news outlet published a report that Mickoski allegedly expressed interest to obtain a Bulgarian citizenship two decades ago.
The operation contains classic hybrid methods – spread of false information, discreditation, abuse of personal tragedies and economic insinuations. These activities are intensifying with every defeat of the Bulgarian diplomacy in the European institutions, and are conducted by news outlets in Bulgaria, supported by structures in the Bulgarian services and those close to nationalist parties there, Lefkov said, naming the news sites – Lupa, Tribune, Epicenter and Pogled.
Lefkov said that international organizations have already mapped out hundreds of coordinated news sites and social media pages in Bulgaria that spread anti-western as well as anti-Macedonian narratives. Lefkov added that the SDSM party in Macedonia is joining this Bulgarian push against the Macedonian Prime Minister.
The role of SDS is clear – instead of distancing themselves from such destructive operations, they continue to participate in them, hoping that they will harm VMRO-DPMNE and return to power. But the truth is that SDS is inflicting direct damage to Macedonia, said Lefkov, calling out Levica leader Dimitar Apasiev and SDSM official Andrej Zernovski for drumming up the Bulgarian reports. “They will not succeed, because the Macedonian people knows who fights for him, and who is trading in favor of foreign agendas”.
