The Defense Commission of the Bulgarian parliament approved on Tuesday the donation to Ukraine of an unspecified number of S-300 anti-aircraft missiles that are in a technical condition that does not allow their use, but can be repaired by the Ukrainian army, reports the EFE agency, quoted by Agerpres.
S-300 anti-aircraft systemsPhoto: Yuri Smityuk / TASS / Profimedia
The proposal still needs to be approved by the plenary session of the Sofia legislature, but this seems like a formality since the three parties that submitted it, two from power and one from the opposition, have a large majority.
Bulgarian Defense Minister Todor Tagarev specified that Ukraine will not be supplied with complete batteries of S-300 missiles, but only missiles for these systems, the technical condition of which does not allow their use and Bulgaria cannot even repair them with the means at its disposal.
For his part, the chairman of the Defense Commission in the Bulgarian legislature, Hristo Gadzev, explained that this aid offered to Ukraine does not diminish Bulgaria’s defense capacity, especially since this country has been trying for many years to repair those missiles and has not succeeded, instead Ukraine has the technical capacity to make them operational.
Coming to Sofia at the beginning of July, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked Bulgaria for more military assistance.
Bulgaria is increasing its military aid to Ukraine
The new Bulgarian government led by pro-Western Prime Minister Nikolai Denkov later announced a military aid package for Ukraine, which, due to the divisions caused by the issue in Bulgaria, it chose not to detail, but which was later confirmed the delivery of about a hundred Soviet-made BTRs purchased in the 80s.
Bulgaria is a large producer of ammunition, compatible in particular with Soviet-designed weapons in the Ukrainian army’s equipment. The topic of military aid to Ukraine is a controversial topic in Bulgaria, a country with strong traditional ties to Russia.
While the former prime minister, also pro-Western, Kiril Petkov (dismissed last year by no-confidence motion) strongly supported the provision of military aid to Ukraine, President Rumen Radev opposed it.
Despite this opposition from the president, Petkov’s government clandestinely supplied Ukraine with weapons, ammunition and fuel since the first days of the Russian invasion, and since then the Bulgarian arms industry has been operating at full capacity and last year had record exports of about four billions of euros.
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