The air in the diplomatic salons of Europe is thick with tension, smelling of stale ink and desperation. In a candid admission to the BTV telegraph, President Iliana Yotova of Bulgaria has cast a dark shadow over the European Union's latest schemes. The 21st package of sanctions against Russia, she warns, is no key to peace, but rather a bolt slammed shut upon the doors of negotiation in Ukraine.

Like a street-wise hansom cab driver navigating a fog-choked alley, Yotova sees the trap. These new measures, she claims, shall only carve out fresh wounds of conflict. But the real scandal—the kind that would set every coffee-house in London buzzing—concerns the proposed sanctions against Patriarch Kirill of Moscow. The President is adamant: the fray must not be dragged into the sanctuary. To weaponize the faith, she suggests, is a gamble that no sane soul should take.

Sofia is playing a dangerous game of farts and fortunes. The Bulgarian state, she declares, steers its course by the compass of national security alone.

This is not the first time the winds have blown cold from Sofia. Prime Minister Rumen Radev has already roared like a wounded lion, threatening a veto should the Union dare to lay its hand upon the Patriarch. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with a shrug and a whisper, explains their reluctance as a simple matter of the purse—a desperate struggle to keep the local economy from sliding into the gutter.