The largest one-time military aid package which includes 100 armoured vehicles from the Bulgarian police stockpile, mostly infantry carrier vehicles was sent to Ukraine in what was Sofia’s first official decision to help Kyiv with heavy equipment, Bulgarian authorities announced on Thursday, according to Euractiv.
The military equipment was bought 40 years ago to carry out the so-called Revival process – the totalitarian regime’s attempt to forcefully assimilate the Bulgarian Turks by changing their names, which led to the exile of more than 300,000 Bulgarian citizens of Turkish origin to Turkey nearly 40 years ago.
“This is armoured military equipment purchased during the Revival Process and has never been used. At the same time, it generates costs for storage and maintenance,” said Ivaylo Mirchev from the governing coalition We Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria.
“The Ukrainians will ensure this technique is useful to them,” added the Bulgarian MP.
Armoured vehicles were part of one of the most tragic periods of the totalitarian regime in the Balkan country, while the Bulgarian Communist Party (1944-1989) was in power in Sofia and turned Bulgaria into a satellite of the USSR.
The decision on the armoured vehicles was announced only a week after the visit of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Bulgaria. This is the first military package from Bulgaria to Ukraine about which information has been published. The military aid until now was secret, but the unofficial information was that Bulgaria was helping Ukraine with ammunition.
Bulgaria hopes to receive replacement military capabilities from the US after providing the armoured vehicles. The Bulgarian army has announced an order for nearly $1 billion to purchase modern Western armoured vehicles for the infantry, but the procedure has not yet been completed.
In December last year, the caretaker government of President Rumen Radev refused to send the old Soviet S-300 anti-aircraft systems, which Bulgaria and Ukraine want, in exchange for receiving modern US air defence systems worth $200 million. The new pro-EU Bulgarian government hopes the US offer is still valid.
“(President) Radev is very concerned about the Bulgarian army, but he missed the chance. We saw that a modern air defence system also shot down Putin’s supersonic missiles in Ukraine,” said Mirchev.
Bulgaria is one of the few NATO member countries that has large quantities of Soviet weapons and equipment, as well as ammunition for them, which are used by the Ukrainian army.