Americans will land in our country at the end of April to certify the base for the Bulgarian F-16

American specialists will arrive in our country at the end of April to certify part of the facilities necessary for the reception of the first F-16 Block 70 combat aircraft. This was announced by the Minister of Defense Atanas Zapryanov today in response to a question of "Focus" regarding the stage of preparation of the Third Air Base for the reception of the first batch of fighters.

"On April 22 and 24, the chief of defense will be in Graf Ignatievo with experts and specialists on the subject. We are following this matter very closely. There will be experts from the American side. It is very important that they are here. They will certify the facilities – one of the facilities must receive certification in order to receive the aircraft on our territory," said the Minister of Defense.

Zapryanov also said that it is very important for the certification process to be successful. He explained that if this did not happen, the country could find itself in the situation of Slovakia, which had to deploy its F-16 Block 70 on foreign territory.

The Minister of Defense added that the certification is for one of the security elements.

Regarding the financial parameters for the preparation of the infrastructure, he assured: "The financial means are provided there, there are also other needs that must be resolved, as some problems arise in the constructive construction itself".

The Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Defense, Hristo Gadjev, announced that "In the next two weeks, we will visit the place of the committee".

Last week, Todor Tagarev, who was then still acting as Minister of Defense, announced that the Ministry of Defense was working intensively on receiving the first combat vehicles.

Then he announced that infrastructure construction projects were divided into two categories – objects directly related to aircraft and those related to infrastructure improvement.

Tagarev also said that the contracts, which are directly related to the acceptance of the machines, must be concluded by the end of 2024.

However, in his earlier statement (ed. note – from the beginning of April), Tagarev again warned that "The risks of not being ready to welcome the planes remain”. At the time, he expressed the position that the efforts of the team he led at the Ministry of Defense failed to compensate "sufficiently for the lag.