The talks among representatives of the four parties from the ruling coalition, which lasted close to three hours, were not made public. There is still no official decision on whether Bulgaria should send military aid to Ukraine. Before the meeting, Democratic Bulgaria co-chairman Atanas Atanas said, in an interview with the BNR, that a decision to render Ukraine military aid would garner the necessary parliamentary majority.

All this is taking place against the backdrop of the horrific photographs and videos of massacred civilians in Bucha near Kyiv in the wake of the retreat of the Russian forces from the town. In an address to the nation, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky invited former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former French President Nicolas Sarkozy to visit Bucha to “see tortured Ukrainians with their own eyes” to understand what the concession policy to Russia has led to. After the Ukrainian authorities gave access to a number of foreign media outlets to the town, journalists have reported more than 20 bodies in the streets of the devastated town, while the Ukrainian authorities say they have found more than 300 bodies in a mass grave near a church. On Tuesday, the UN Security Council is expected to discuss the massacre in Bucha.  Moscow on its part described the photographs as a provocation and called for convening a UN Security Council emergency meeting. First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Dmitry Polyanskiy stated that the Security Council must see the whole truth about this “Ukrainian provocation staged especially for Western media”.  

This morning Ukrainian media outlets reported a Russian missile attack on Odesa, the target being an oil refinery. Fire broke out but nobody has been reported killed or wounded by the missiles, some of which were shot down by the Ukrainian air defence. According to data of the regional administration, the Russian forces have started withdrawing from the region of Sumy in Eastern Ukraine.