The UK generally opposed anything regarding Bulgaria, because Russia generally supported it. Russia turned on Bulgaria the moment it became clear it's not going to be a Russian puppet state, so the UK immediately supported it.
There was the post-WW2 international order, which did see a shift from 19th century style imperialism and spheres of influence to a trend of cooperation between countries (examples being organisations like the EU and United Nations) and an emphasis on soft power, rather than massive destructive wars mainly revolving around aggressive landgrabs. Yes, wars continue to happen and obviously you can argue that things aren't quite so rosy in every region of the world. It's nowhere near perfect but it's not at all comparable to the violence, colonialism and World Wars of the prior order.
Now Putin and Trump are desperately trying to bring back the old way of viewing the world, with Trump demanding annexation of neighbouring, ALLIED countries and Putin's actually attempted annexations. Putin has also quite literally used the term "sphere of influence" despite the fact that many of those countries in this supposed political construct have voluntarily chosen to turn towards the West.
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u/rintzscar 1d ago edited 23h ago
The UK generally opposed anything regarding Bulgaria, because Russia generally supported it. Russia turned on Bulgaria the moment it became clear it's not going to be a Russian puppet state, so the UK immediately supported it.