[3] By early October, Bulgarian forces were breaking through into eastern Serbia, Vardar Macedonia and Kosovo in support of the Soviet advance towards Belgrade.

Although the Bulgarian army drove the Germans out of Skopje and what is now North Macedonia, later Yugoslav and contemporary Macedonian historiography has downplayed its role for ethnopolitical reasons.

[9] After capturing Skopje on 14 November, the Bulgarian Second Army and the Yugoslav Partisans kept driving the Albanian SS Division and the Balli Kombëtar back, until Kosovo had been seized.

The Bulgarians developed the advance towards Skopje into a large-scale offensive, raising the possibility of cutting off Army Group E. The situation was desperate, and the town was evacuated finally during the night of November 13/14.

[20] Parallel to the Soviet advance in Eastern Serbia, Bulgarian forces south and south-west of Niš threatened the last German troop-withdrawal route from Skopje.

[23][24] On a series of Army Group E maps of its withdrawal through Vardar Macedonia and southern Serbia and in the memoirs of its chief of staff, there is almost no indication of Yugoslav Partisan units.

[26] Oxley reported that a small number of Yugoslav partisans were in the area of the Bulgarian operations, but it was difficult for them to take serious action against the well-organised German units.

[35] Before the Tito-Stalin split in 1948, General Mihajlo Apostolski wrote that it was tactically advantageous to include the reorganized Bulgarian army in the Macedonian war against the Germans.

[38] Partisan Jordan Cekov wrote that street battles to liberate western Skopje ended late in the evening of November 13, but continued in the city's eastern half.

[39] One Bulgarian unit had nearly reached the center of Skopje by about 3 am on November 14, but it was pushed back to the outskirts by the Partisans and was not allowed to reenter the city until noon.

[43] Goce Delčev Brigade member Metodi Karpachev said that his unit entered Skopje on the morning of November 14 to find it seized by Bulgarian troops.

[46] Macedonian identity formed after World War II is deeply rooted in Yugoslav Partisan activity, and thus the Bulgarians are considered fascists.

[47][better source needed] Macedonian media, such as Vo Centar, continue to spread the untruth that Skopje was liberated by Yugoslav communist guerrillas from the Bulgarian fascist occupiers.

[55] Vlado Bučkovski, another former prime minister and chief negotiator with Bulgaria, stated a week later, amid the campaign against Zaev, that the Macedonians and Bulgarians were a single people, separated by the post-WWII Yugoslav policy.