Proposal for Bulgaria to send about 100 Interior Ministry armoured vehicles to Ukraine
The We Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria, GERB-UDF and Movement for Rights and Freedoms parliamentary groups are tabling in the National Assembly a draft decision to send about 100 Interior Ministry armoured personnel carriers to Ukraine, WCC-DB MP Ivailo Mirchev told bTV in an interview on July 13.
The armoured personnel carriers, produced in the 1960s and 1970s, were acquired by Bulgaria’s communist-era Interior Military Forces – today’s Gendarmerie – but had not been put into use and were no longer needed, Mirchev aid.
He said that Prime Minister Nikolai Denkov, the ministers of interior and of defence, the head of the parliamentary defence committee Hristo Gadzhev and GERB-UDF leader Boiko Borissov were participating in implementation of the initiative.
Mirchev expressed hope that Bulgaria would still be able to benefit from the military aid promised by the United States in exchange for providing Ukraine with Soviet-era equipment.
Some days ago, there were media reports that the US had offered Bulgaria $200 million worth of modern US-made air defence systems if Bulgaria sent its Soviet-era missile defence systems to Ukraine. However, the caretaker government appointed by President Roumen Radev did not respond to the offer, the reports said.
Mirchev said that Radev was “very concerned about the Bulgarian army, but he missed the chance”.
“We saw that modern air defence systems also shot down Putin’s supersonic missiles in Ukraine,” he said.
In the past 16 months, Ukraine had invested five billion leva in the Bulgarian economy for the purchase of Bulgarian weapons and ammunition, and by the end of 2023, the sum could rise to seven billion leva, Mirchev said.
Bulgaria has so far sent the least compared with other countries. A new package was planned, which would also be relatively small, he said.
(Photo: Democratic Bulgaria)
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