Bulgaria has left the "Coalition of the Willing". Radev's government refuses to join the FREYJA project - the common European ballistic missile defense system. But while Europe organizes itself to defend itself, we organize ourselves to be absent.
Technologically, in the new anti-ballistic system, Ukraine will produce the interceptor missiles and launchers,
and the European partners - radars, sensors, electronics, control systems and production capacity.
Bulgaria should participate in such a project from the very beginning. Not because FREYJA will replace Patriot tomorrow, but because Bulgaria does not have real anti-ballistic defense and in the next 4-5 years there will be nowhere to buy it. And a new Patriot system cannot be delivered to us before 2035, even if we order it tomorrow.
Bulgaria should not become a graveyard for Soviet equipment. We should buy NATO aircraft, NATO radars and NATO air defense systems. We should look for used F-16s, Patriots, PAC-3s and all real possibilities for protecting the Bulgarian sky. But we should also
participate in the creation of the next generation of European defense,
instead of explaining again after years why we are not sufficiently protected from external threats.
Instead of being in FREYJA, where Ukraine, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark and Sweden already participate, the government removed Bulgaria from the "Coalition of the Willing" and began to turn us into something like the soft Orban of the EU - formally inside, but with its head turned east.
The paradox is that FREYJA is not even an offensive project. It is a purely defensive system designed to protect European cities, power plants, airports and military bases from ballistic missiles. Refusing to participate in it is a voluntary refusal to protect your own citizens.
Because when Russian missiles fly, neither declarations of peace nor the clothes of the Minister of Foreign Affairs stop them..
Radars, interceptors and well-integrated systems stop them.
A country that constantly misses the future ends up paying much more to buy the past.