Ivo Hristov Hristov

Public record

Compiled from publications and official records as of 18.10.2026. Every statement links to its source; claims made by others are marked as such, with who makes them. Quotations in English are our translation.

Communist Party and State Security

• His father. By decision No 199 of 16.03.2011 (check of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs), the State Security files commission disclosed Hristo Petkov Hristov, born 29.03.1932 in Kormyansko, Sevlievo district: "by [order] МЗУК-0402/19.10.1964 appointed operative officer; ... by order No Р-04/27.03.1984 reassigned as intelligence officer 2nd grade" (our translation). — comdos.bg register According to Sega this is Ivo Hristov's father, disclosed by the commission "as a staff member of the General Staff intelligence directorate" (our translation). — Sega, 12.10.2026 According to his official biography, Ivo Hristov was born on 8 October 1970 in Istanbul and finished secondary school in Brussels. — gov.bg Club Z writes that his father was an officer of military intelligence, "which made the son grow up abroad, in Brussels" (our translation). — Club Z, 07.05.2026 The detailed account of the father's career in military intelligence (RUMNO resident in Istanbul and Brussels, training in Moscow) comes from a single article by Anton Todorov, then a GERB MP and a political opponent of Radev and Hristov. — Faktor, 19.12.2016
• The grandfathers. According to the same article by Anton Todorov, his paternal grandfather Petko Hristov Petkov joined the BKP in October 1944, and his maternal grandfather Ivan Kafaliev was a founding member of the Bulgarian Communist Youth Union in Pirdop in 1920, took part in the September 1923 uprising and was recognised as an "active fighter against fascism and capitalism". — Faktor, 19.12.2016

Russia

• The Soviet Army monument. As an MEP he called its removal "a victory of the barbarians" and a rehabilitation of fascism (our translation). — Mediapool, 12.2023
• "In tune with Moscow". In 2017, as a BSP MP, he repeated Maria Zakharova's claim that without the Soviet Army 50,000 Bulgarian Jews would have been deported; in the same video he said 80% of the population are "morons". — Mediapool, 07.11.2017
• Sanctions. As Deputy PM he defended Bulgaria's reservations on the 21st sanctions package (Patriarch Kirill, Alekperov) as "calibrating European policy" (our translation). — Sega, 11.07.2026 He wants Bulgaria to restore full membership of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia, frozen in 2022. — News.bg, 26.06.2026
• BSP MEPs. A Political Capital (Budapest) study found the BSP MEPs, Ivo Hristov among them, to be "the strongest supporters of authoritarian regimes" in the Socialist group; they voted against an amendment on the Magnitsky Act (our translation). — RFE/RL, 04.09.2020
• Moscow. Faktor claims, without giving a source, that Hristov lectures at Moscow State University at the invitation of the historian Andrey Fursov. — Faktor, 08.11.2017
• Rossiya 24. Breaking.bg claims that in 2016 Hristov gave an interview in Russian to the Russian state channel Rossiya 24: "According to Hristov, Bulgarians adore Russia, and Russophobes are a negligible minority" (our translation). The interview itself has not been found. — Breaking.bg, 14.04.2019

Corruption and scandals

• Security clearance. In 2017 the State Commission on Information Security said that, as chief of President Radev's cabinet, he had no clearance for classified information. — Mediapool, 21.06.2017 The Sofia City Prosecutor's Office declined to open proceedings on the complaint: the cipher cable addressed to him had not been given to him. — News.bg, 23.10.2017 In February 2018 the presidency admitted he still had no clearance and had not applied. — 24 Chasa, 26.02.2018

Other

• Bulgarian National Radio. In August 2026, as Deputy PM, he said oligarchs are taking over the media and "I cannot say the same about BNR" (our translation); the media regulator and the Association of European Journalists reacted. — Sega, 13.08.2026