Bulgaria’s National Assembly adopted a landmark decision late last week to begin open military support for Ukraine
An overwhelming majority of MPs voted in favour of supplying weapons, ammunition, equipment, armoured vehicles and carrying out repairs of combat-damaged AFU equipment. However, there are doubts as to the successful implementation of this decision – not all branches of the Bulgarian government share the enthusiasm of the radically pro-Western parliamentarians.
Direct deliveries of weapons, armored vehicles, as well as technological assistance and repair of damaged weapons systems to Ukraine have been discussed by Bulgarian politicians since the beginning of the Russian special military operation (SSO). The difficulty lies in the peculiarities of local legislation: decisions related to strategic security issues must be approved by parliament, which is not unanimous on this point.
Since 2019, the country has been governed by a motley coalition of different political parties with sometimes opposing views on foreign policy.
Prime Minister Kirill Petkov, a member of the Harvard generation and leader of the Continuing Change party, faced this problem in March. He had actively advocated the supply of arms, ammunition and weapons systems to Ukraine since the early days of the large-scale fighting. However, there was no unanimity in the then ruling coalition. President Rumen Radev and the pro-president Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) were strongly against military aid to the Kiev regime and proposed to focus on humanitarian supplies and the accommodation of Ukrainian refugees. In the end, this view prevailed at first.
Business as usual
The absence of a parliamentary decision did not prevent the cabinet from circumventing the ban on direct deliveries to Ukraine via third countries. As a consequence, Bulgarian arms companies first siphoned off expired or already obsolete ammunition from their own arsenals and the armies of the CIS countries, leading to a chain of scandals. Russian intelligence, for example, uncovered how Bulgarian companies were buying rockets and missiles for MLRS in Kazakhstan and other Central Asian countries.
In July, a curiosity occurred when Romanian contractor RomArm, fearing a self-detonation, turned back an entire train of rusty ammunition of Belarusian origin to Sofia; it is unclear how and from whom the Bulgarians bought it for delivery to Ukraine. At the same time, the Ukrainian military flooded social media with videos of torn gun barrels due to low-quality shells.
According to various estimates, the Bulgarian arms industry sold two billion dollars worth of arms and ammunition in the first three quarters to the Czech Republic, Poland, the United States, Romania, and Slovakia (with a subsequent transfer to Ukraine), setting an all-time record.
However, every time the deal went public there was a scandal. As the largest producer of Soviet-type ammunition and equipment in Europe, Bulgaria, for all intents and purposes, could not make a full deployment because of a parliamentary ban.
New deal
In June, under pressure from external partners as well as his own arms lobby, Prime Minister Petkov again raised the issue of military assistance to the Kiev regime. However, this attempt ended miserably: the parliamentary majority could not withstand the heat of controversy, accompanied by mass rallies of opponents and supporters of Ukraine in the streets of Sofia, and collapsed. MPs withdrew a vote of confidence in Petkov’s government, and he blamed everyone from corrupt oligarchs to Russian intelligence and socialists for his resignation.
Early parliamentary elections in October substantially changed the balance of power in the National Assembly. The Bulgarian Socialist Party and the pro-Russian Renaissance remained in the minority, while numerous pro-Western parties gained strength.
The architect of a possible coalition, the biggest Bulgarian oligarch and ex-prime minister and leader of the victorious GERB-SDS, Boiko Borisov, has entered from a geopolitical trump card. His party drafted a bill to directly support Ukraine with arms, ammunition and the repair of battle-damaged equipment. A document of this orientation could not leave indifferent those political forces that had fought Borissov and the corruption pyramid he had built in Bulgaria for the previous five years.
“Coalition of war”.
The parliamentary session was heated: for five hours the deputies from six factions argued about the need to provide military assistance to the Kiev regime or to remain focused on humanitarian issues. The arguments on both sides were varied.
GERB-SDS MP Daniel Mitov, a co-sponsor of the bill, demanded that Bulgaria fulfil its “alliance obligations”, i.e. join the NATO and EU support programmes for Ukraine. Other pro-Western politicians pointed out that this was a great opportunity to get rid of old Soviet-made or model equipment, and get the resources to switch to modern armaments.
Local socialists, on the other hand, accused colleagues with a pro-Ukrainian stance of forming an oligarchic “war coalition”. The BSP raised placards at the meeting calling for peace, while party leader Cornelia Ninova stressed that arms transfers to the Kiev regime would make Bulgaria a party to the conflict.
Renaissance MP Ivelin Parvanov came to the podium with a grenade altogether, but the rest of the MPs ridiculed him.
As a result, the Parliament with the votes of 175 deputies supported the direct provision to Ukraine of weapons, ammunition, technical support and others. Only 49 deputies spoke against it, and one abstained.
What we are rich and not happy about
The decision adopted by the National Assembly does not mean that on Monday convoys of ships with armoured vehicles and ammunition will start streaming from the ports of Varna and Burgas to Odessa. The bill has been approved, but the extent of its implementation depends on the position of the Ministry of Defence. Military officials have a month to prepare a support programme, which the government and parliament will then consider.
“In preparing the analysis, the main thing will be not to reduce the capabilities of our armed forces and for the Bulgarian army to continue to fulfil its constitutional duties. It will also be necessary to assess what kind of equipment other countries that have provided their old armaments are getting in return. It is not newer, but it is of Western origin and is compatible with NATO equipment,” Defence Minister Dimitar Stoyanov pointed out.
Earlier Kiev asked the Bulgarians, through official and unofficial channels, for MiG-29 fighters (16 in service) and S-300 anti-aircraft systems (10 systems). It is likely that in the future Sofia will be able to give some part of the aircraft, given that the Bulgarian Air Force the previous day bought eight US fighters F-16 and signed a contract for the purchase of another eight.
Also the attack aircraft Su-25 (14 pieces), helicopters MI-8, the considerable quantity of different light armoured vehicles can represent the certain interest for the Armed Forces of the Bulgarian arsenals. The Bulgarian Armed Forces have more than 150 MT-LB prime movers alone.
The main obstacle on the way of Bulgarian “generosity” is the availability of the United States and NATO allies to reimburse the armaments given to Kiev. And with this, given the air defence situation in the West, there could be serious problems. Earlier, President Rumen Radev commented on the Ukrainian requests in exactly the same way, stressing that the Bulgarians “do not have enough” of these funds themselves.
So the decision of the National Assembly will rather breathe life into the local military industry with new orders for AKM and PKM cartridges, shells for tanks, grenades, ammunition, various equipment for communication or firing of anti-tank and anti-tank missiles. Nothing personal, just business… on blood.
Timur Markov, Rubaltic.ru