Has Putin stated that Russia will never attack Bulgaria because Bulgarians will always be brothers to Russians and both countries will unite and change the world together, and did he ever use the phrase "bowing to the Bulgarians"? No, that's not true: In 2022, shortly after the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia declared Bulgaria to be an enemy state.
The claim appeared in a video on TikTok (archived here) published by @ganchura on July 24, 2023.
The Bulgarian caption text placed on top of the picture reads translated by Lead Stories staff in English:
Putin: The Bulgarians are our brothers, and we will always be such! We will never attack our brotherly Bulgaria! Sure, their politicians serve the West, but the people are with Russia! Together, we will change the world! We will unite again, as it was before! Bowing to the Bulgarians!
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Thu Aug 3 05:43:13 2023 UTC)
No official information or media reports support the claim that Putin ever made such a statement. A search for different phrases of the Bulgarian text in the video, including the words 'Поклон пред Българите' (bowing to the Bulgarians), using Google News' index of thousands of credible news sites did not return any results.
The only trace of information connected to such words can be found in a Bulgarian FB post dated of November 24, 2022. The text of the TikTok video does entirety copy that post. The publication was in a FB group supporting the Bulgarian Party Vazrajdane (revival), which expresses pro-Russian views.
According to a publication of the Bulgarian National Radio (BNR) on June 26, 2023 the Russian opposition leader and former Russian Deputy Minister of Energy Vladimir Milov stated:
Putin is not a friend of Bulgaria, and his only interest is to install a government in Sofia.
On July 21, 2023, Russian Duma Deputy Chairman Pyotr Tolstoy stated on Russian TV that Bulgaria is a possible military target after Russia is done with Ukraine, even declaring part of Bulgaria's Black Sea coast to be Russian territory. This statement provoked a strong reaction from the Bulgarian government and is defined by the Bulgarian Deputy Defense Minister Atanas Zapryanov as:
Insolent, outrageous, unacceptable and does not correspond to international law.
In a Twitter post on June 5, 2022, the now-former Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, Dmitry Rogozin, threatened to nuke Bulgaria in response to the refusal of the Bulgarian side to provide an air corridor to a Russian state aircraft, saying:
This is what Sarmat (Satan II nuclear missile) is good for. It will not ask for consent for the flight from the cowardly Bulgarians.
