Nina Ivanova, deputy chair of the Bulgarian association Otechestvo (homeland) in the Ukrainian town of Reni said, in an interview with the Bulgarian news agency BTA, that for the first time since the beginning of the war, Russia was subjecting Reni to intense bombing and that the people in Reni had had a “very scary night”.

“My son from Odessa brought the grandchildren at the beginning of the week when the missile attacks started there, because Reni is a safer place. But last night our town was under attack. The children were screaming, I could barely calm them down,” Nina Ivanova says.

On the night of 24 July, Russia attacked Reni with 15 drones, wounding 6. There are around 150,000 Bulgarians in the region of Odessa and around 8,500 Bulgarians living in Reni – a town just 24 kms from Galați in Romania.