With stockpiles of Soviet-era weapons, Bulgaria, which has a significant arms industry, could be a key ally of Ukraine, trained and equipped with just such weapons in a war following an invasion by Russian forces.
However, considering that the parliament is now dissolved ahead of the vote on April 2nd, i.e. the fifth early election in two years amid political uncertainty, the interim government appointed by pro-Kremlin President Rumen Radev is not in the mood to provide that kind of help to Kyiv, the Radio editorial office writes .
Radev, a former Air Force pilot, reiterated his stance on March 21 when he opposed joining a dozen European Union (EU) countries that intend to supply Ukraine with at least one million artillery shells over the next year.
“Bulgaria does not support and is not part of the general action of supplying grenades to Ukraine,” said Radev . “Our country will support European diplomatic efforts to restore peace.”
Radev also added that Bulgaria will not supply fighter jets, anti-missile defense systems or tanks to Ukraine as long as the current interim government is in power.
Radev, along with Dimitar Stoyanov, Bulgaria’s interim defense minister, recently said that transferring parts of Bulgaria’s military stockpile, including Soviet-era tanks and jets or S-300 air defense systems, would weaken the country’s own defenses, analysts say.
Sofia also appears to be rejecting an offer from Washington: donate Soviet-era weapons to Ukraine and the United States will replace them with modern systems or money. Slovakia and Greece are the two NATO countries that will accept the offer.
The benefits of that deal were evident on March 22 when Slovak Defense Minister Jaroslav Nad announced that the United States had offered to sell Slovakia 12 new Bell AH-1Z Viper helicopters at a two-thirds discount after Bratislava sent its ‘retired’ MiG-29 fighters to Ukraine.
Bulgaria certainly needs to modernize its armed forces, argues Atanas Zapryanov, Bulgaria’s former deputy defense minister, arguing that much of its stockpile is close to decommissioning anyway. “I guarantee you that in five years, remember what I say, they will say that this old iron is useless and that we have to throw it away and buy a new one,” Zaprjanov told RSE Bulgarian Service.
In parliament, opposition to aid to the Ukrainian army came precisely from the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and the far-right Revival party. Even the pro-Western government led by Kirill Petkov, who was in power from December 2021 to July 2022, was not able to overcome it with its coalition partners.
In May 2022, the parliament voted only to repair Ukrainian military equipment at factories in Bulgaria, rejecting the government’s offer to send a package of weapons to Kiev.
However, by December 2022, the pro-Western faction managed to get approval for the first arms package for Ukraine , although not heavy equipment. The list of weapons in the package was classified, but government officials said Sofia would send mainly small arms and ammunition.
Until then, Bulgaria, along with Hungary led by pro-Kremlin Prime Minister Viktor Orban, were the only two EU members to reject Ukraine’s requests for military aid.
Secret military aid
Behind the scenes, however, Bulgaria was probably doing much more. Petkov recently said that Bulgaria secretly supplied Ukraine with ammunition and much-needed diesel fuel in the first months after Russia launched its invasion on February 24, 2022.
Last June, Aleksandar Mihailov, then director of Kintex, the state-owned arms and ammunition trading company, said that Bulgaria sent 4,200 tons of weapons to Ukraine via Poland.
However, officially, according to a report by Germany’s Kiel Institute for the World Economy, which tracked various forms of foreign aid to Ukraine, the Bulgarian Ministry of Defense supplied Ukraine with helmets, vests, first aid kits, winter clothing and boots in military equipment before parliament approved the deliveries. weapons in December 2022.
The vote in December could indicate a possible U-turn for Sofia, but that seems unlikely with parliament dissolved and Radev, who won a second presidential term in November 2021 with the support of the BSP and is now firmly in power.
Bulgaria has a successful arms industry , the sixth largest in Europe, specializing in the production and modernization of Soviet-era weapons systems. In 2021, domestic arms production generated more than a billion leva (almost 550 million dollars), while a large part of this production was intended for other NATO countries, as well as countries in Africa and Asia.
Reuters reported in November 2022 that arms factories in Eastern and Central Europe were ” pumping out weapons, ammunition and other military supplies at a pace not (seen) since the Cold War to help aid against invading Russian forces.”
The US lends a helping hand
On January 6, Washington announced new military aid of $682 million to “European partners and allies to help stimulate and supplement military equipment donations to Ukraine.”
Not only could Bulgaria use that fund to modernize its military in exchange for sending some of its older systems to Ukraine, but earlier in October 2022, the US Embassy in Bulgaria announced nearly $40 million in a similar program for the Balkan country alone .
In December 2022, an American delegation arrived in Sofia for talks on possible deliveries of Bulgarian weapons to Ukraine. Specifically, US officials offered unspecified US weapons systems in exchange for sending Bulgaria’s S-300 air defense system to Ukraine.
Such a request of the USA was allegedly made by US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin when he visited Sofia on March 19, 2022, but without success.
This time, US officials reportedly offered more than $240 million in financial incentives to convince their Bulgarian counterpart, sources familiar with the talks told RFE/RL’s Bulgarian Service.
Bulgaria’s Defense Ministry did not respond to RFE’s questions about whether it has expressed interest in participating in what is formally known as Washington’s Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program.
The US State Department also declined to say whether Bulgarian officials have expressed interest in the program.
Radev said that if Ukraine donates some of its Soviet-era missile systems such as the S-300 and S-200, as well as MiG-29 and Su-25 military jets and T-72 tanks, Bulgaria will need replacements.
“As the supreme commander of the armed forces, I am obliged to insist that the defense potential of the Bulgarian army does not weaken in this complex situation, but on the contrary, it must be maintained and developed,” promised Radev.
However, senior Bulgarian officials seem to be ignoring a golden opportunity to modernize their military with generous help from Washington, Zapryanov said.
“From this billion (in US dollars of military aid announced in September 2022 under the FMF), the Bulgarian government would get money to buy whatever it wants,” Zapryanov told RFE/RL.
Slovakia could serve as a model for Bulgaria, Zaprjanov pointed out. Namely, Slovakia announced on March 17 that it will send all 13 of its MiG-29 aircraft to Ukraine at an unspecified date. In return, the US will compensate the transfer with 745 million dollars in defense material, while the EU will provide 200 million euros.
If Bulgaria were to supply Ukraine with its S-300 system, it would receive not only funds for more modern weapons, but also protect its skies with Patriot missile systems as part of the NATO air defense mission, as was done in Slovakia, Zapryanov said, emphasizing that this be a win-win situation.
In addition, the outdated S-300 systems that Bulgaria now relies on will be decommissioned in two or three years, Zapryanov claims. The remaining MiG jets, registered as number 4 or 5, could be decommissioned as early as the end of this year.
Source: Slobodna Evropa