Landscape overview:
The war in Ukraine continues, unabated, but largely out of the Western headlines. The Russian intervention in Syria continues as well, albeit reduced in scope, thanks to the Turks cutting the Russian supply lines by closing their air space and harassing the Russian ships at Bosporus.
The American long-game of economic isolation and sanctions is paying dividends, with the Russian economy on the verge of collapse, and the level of living sliding deep into the undeveloped world category.
The Syrian migration gambit paid off by significantly destabilizing the EU, more due to the moral and societal choices made by the European society than to the Kremlin's designs.
Russian population has become ever more militant, raising the spectrum of the darkest days of the Soviet empire. Russia has reignited the Armenian-Azeri conflict to draw the Turkish attention away from its southern borders, sponsored a series of terrorist acts in Turkey itself to punish it for interfering in the Russian plans in Syria, and stoked the ambers of the Georgian war by announcing a Crimea-like referendum in Ossetia.
NATO has been busy building up its rapid response forces and air defenses along the EU's eastern border, and landed a token force in Georgia.
Board is set, what now?
Russia's situation is getting desperate, but Kremlin is not yet done playing, not by a long shot. An actual confrontation with NATO would be a disaster, thus Putin needs a way to somehow jam NATO's ability to respond. And he has found his intended Trojan horse in Bulgaria, which occupies a strategically important geographic location, especially for the Russian designs in Syria.
It is no secret to anyone who's paying attention that Bulgaria, the poorest EU country, is essentially a mafia-run state, ruled by corrupt post-Communist elites with deep ties to Moscow. The country's economy is in a downturn; media landscape has recently seen a significant amount of Russian investment; the Black Sea coast has been colonized by a sizable Russian population. This, in addition to historical mythology peddled by the Russian interests to the Bulgarian population for over 200 years, has created a favorable for Putin platform to thrust the Russian hybrid war machine into the gears of NATO, in hope that Bulgaria is NATO's Achilles' heel.
Recently, the level of activity and communications between Sofia and Moscow has spiked, obvious to observation. Bulgarian government has passed several new laws, essentially blocking the Bulgarian diaspora from taking any part in the domestic discourse and elections. Groups of masked men wearing the Georgiev ribbons have made appearances in Burgas and other Black Sea towns, carrying a marked resemblance to the DNR/LNR scenarios that played out in the Eastern Ukraine. It is clear that Moscow is applying a lot of pressure to the Bulgarian elite, and is trying to saw confusion and fear in the regions with a high number of ethic Russians.
Ultimately, having Bulgaria openly side with Russia would be the tactical victory Putin is seeking there - it would confuse the NATO processes, as now its membership would be divided.
However, in my opinion, Putin will suffer yet another miscalculation - his designs in Bulgaria require vast amounts of money to pay for the risk the local elite would be assuming if they play ball. And money is evaporating from the Russian treasury at an alarming rate, with already little left in the reserves. Russia itself no longer appears to be a desirable destination should the gambit fail and the need to flee emerges, a la Yanukovich. Thus, I expect a lot of maneuvering by the Bulgarian government between the EU and Russia, and possibly some terrorist activity along the Black Sea coast, which may lead to a serious destabilization of the country, but not its open transition into the Russian camp.
