Free speech in Bulgaria is held captive by an indicted oligarch and publisher. This might sound as an exaggeration, but it is decidedly not one. It is the harsh reality, unmasked by the history of the country’s ranking in the so-called World Press Freedom Index annually compiled by Reporters Without Borders (RSF)

Indicted oligarch Vasil Bozhkov has fabricated yet another of his attacks against the state. This time he accused the Prosecutor's Office of ruining cultural and historical treasures confiscated during the searches in his offices. The oligarch steadily pursues his purpose with a series of attempts to defend his unlawfully acquired collection.

After the shadowy clique's pawns spread over the week their poorly concocted fake news items about lawmaker and Telegraph Media publisher Delyan Peevski, using the indicted oligarch Ivo Prokopiev's mainstream media machine, former PM Ivan Kostov, aka the Commander of Bulgaria's murky transition to democracy, took matters into his own hands. On Friday, he activated the “heavy hitters” - the “lab technicians” from his think tank with the New Bulgarian University (NBU).

On 24 May, all Bulgarians celebrate the Day of Bulgarian Enlightenment, Culture and Slavic Alphabet. They mark the first Glagolitic script, created in the 9th century by the brothers Cyril and Methodius of Thessaloniki, later canonised as saints for their great historic contribution.

Indicted oligarch Ivo Prokopiev has again employed the services of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) for his battle against the state waged in a bid to forestall the attempts to mete out justice for his crimes. A day after the Anti-Corruption Commission for Illegal Assets Forfeiture (ACCIAF) filed a new claim for confiscation of money and stocks belonging to Prokopiev and his wife Galya Prokopieva worth about BGN half a million, the France-based NGO released an avalanche of tweets to cater to the chieftain of the Capital circle.

Petar Cholakov, who is Ivo Prokopiev’s guy in the Bulgarian desk of Deutsche Welle, has one job: to voice the oligarch’s thoughts. The master of the mainstream media machine in Bulgaria, Prokopiev has been trying to escape the clutches of the judicial system for years. To that end, former PM Ivan Kostov’s favourite “investor” during the privatisation process uses all sorts of dirty and despicable machinations. Mostly, he tries to pull wool over people’s eyes by using his giant media empire to produce fake news as well as cheap scripts to exert influence on the executive and judicial branches of power.

“What we are working towards is a common mechanism for all countries that has nothing to do with the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism. Obviously someone copy-pasted part of a report from last year. The person who prepared the text made a mistake,” Minister of Foreign Affairs Ekaterina Zaharieva said in a bTV appearance regarding what turned out to be a machination - namely, the news that according to a European Commission report the monitoring mechanism for Bulgaria will not be lifted after all.

“I am not going to resign because of a machination regarding the EC monitoring that was stirred up by a publication of a natural gas oligarch,” Minister of Justice Danail Kirilov told the Bulgarian National Television.

What is the weather outside? Look out of your window. And now visit the website of Mediapool and see what is written there. It would be no wonder if you find out that deep snow covers Bulgaria. One can expect anything of Stoyana Georgieva, the Godmother of fake news.

The indicted oligarch Ivo Prokopiev has stretched his tentacles to yet another key European agency by attempting to secure a position in it for one of the pawns in his inner circle - the scandalous grants recipient Nadya Shabani. He is doing this with the help of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), which is pressuring the Ministry of Justice to approve the nomination by setting an absurdly short deadline of two days for a decision to be made.