Bulgaria looks to Turkey for help with gas shortage
Russia has cut gas exports to Bulgaria, leaving Sofia looking to Ankara, which has some tough decisions to make.
Russia's decision to halt gas exports to Bulgaria on April 27 has left Sofia looking to its next-door neighbors Turkey and Greece to help bridge the gap.
Turkey boasts direct pipeline connections to Bulgaria and Greece, both of which could be used to supply Bulgaria, but a number of technical and legislative issues will have to be overcome first. More importantly, Ankara will have to decide whether it wants to risk angering Russia, Turkey's biggest gas supplier, by helping a country Moscow is in dispute with.
Moscow closing the taps came as no surprise.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has seen the European Union, which Bulgaria joined in 2007, respond with a range of punitive sanctions that have seriously jolted the Russian economy.
