A stormy reaction from the opposition in parliament after the government announced that Bulgaria was stopping military aid to Ukraine. A serious foreign policy and economic mistake - this is how part of the opposition defines this decision.
„This position of the government was aimed at a small part of their electorate - to feed what they want to hear, without there being any basis for this topic to be touched upon at the moment“, commented on „This Morning“ on bTV Bogdan Bogdanov, former Minister of Economy and MP from „We Continue the Change“.
According to him, at the moment, no one has asked for anything from Bulgaria. Ukraine itself also stated that it did not want support from our country.
Bogdanov gave several examples of how Bulgaria has managed to modernize its military stockpiles thanks to this support.
„Obsolete ammunition had to be removed from our warehouses, they have expired. We had to destroy them and pay for it. This old ammunition was removed, sold to Ukraine and with these funds the warehouses of the Military-Private Joint Stock Company were filled with new ammunition. This is an agreement that Dimitar Stoyanov himself signed in 2023.“, he explained.
„This is a foreign policy blunder with the initial idea to satisfy local dynamics, but we cannot afford such mistakes“, Bogdan Bogdanov said.
„We see a problem in behavior. Here we are not talking about a unilateral act, but about a clear policy that Bulgaria follows in a key topic for us - a unified European defense, the position that we take. These are very common topics, but we systematically follow this policy“, explained the PP MP.
According to him, we cannot afford such unmeasured reactions and this has international echo.
The Bulgarian government has decided to end the free provision of weapons and ammunition from the reserves of the Bulgarian Army for Ukraine.
According to Prime Minister Rumen Radev, our country has already provided sufficient resources and is suffering serious socio-economic damage from the conflict, therefore the priority should be to strengthen its own defense capabilities.
So far, Bulgaria has sent a total of 13 packages of military aid. They mainly included redundant or malfunctioning equipment that was no longer needed, such as armored personnel carriers, components for air defense systems, and old ammunition.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, through its spokesman Georgy Tykhy, officially clarified that Kiev does not actually receive free aid, and cooperation in the field of defense is carried out entirely on a mutually beneficial commercial basis.
The Ukrainian side emphasizes that purchases from Bulgarian military-industrial enterprises provide serious opportunities for development and income for the Bulgarian economy.