The article analyses the development of Russian-Bulgarian relations after February 24, 2022. The author draws attention to the fact that in the post-socialist period Sofia has developed a practice of viewing bilateral relations with Moscow not as an independent direction of foreign policy, but as a secondary part of a more general task of integrating the country into Euro-Atlantic community. Because of that the reaction of the Bulgarian political mainstream to the beginning of a special military operation of the Russian armed forces in Ukraine does not represent anything fundamentally new, but rather looks like a logical development of the traditions of Bulgarian diplomacy of recent decades. At the same time, the article emphasizes the presence of political players in Sofia who are interested in adjusting the course of Bulgarian-Russian relations by reducing their dependence on ideological and geopolitical factors.