Dec 8,
2023. Posted by Balkan
Periscope - Hellas
Bulgaria’s National Assembly voted on December 8 overwhelmingly in favour
of additional military aid for Ukraine, the possibility of use of Bulgarian air
space for F-16 training for Ukrainian pilots, and for a limited number of
Ukrainian military personnel to be authorised to transit or stay in Bulgaria
for training.
The vote, with 145 in favour, 55 against, with seven abstentions, came after the resolution was added to the Order Paper on Friday afternoon after being approved by Parliament’s defence committee 24 hours earlier at a special sitting of the committee.
The additional military aid is to involve Bulgaria providing Ukraine with
defective, obsolete and surplus to requirements missiles for air defence.
The resolution, tabled by MPs from the informal ruling majority – GERB-UDF,
We Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria, and the Movement for Rights and
Freedoms – envisages the transfer of air defence missiles being based on a
check that the armaments and materiel that will remain in Bulgaria will be
sufficient to keep the country’s wartime stocks properly equipped.
There will be talks with Bulgaria’s Nato allies on Alliance missile systems
being deployed in Bulgaria to bolster the country’s defensive capabilities.
The resolution calls on the Defence Ministry to take steps to join the
coalition of countries involved in building capacity for Ukraine to put into
use the F-16s it will receive, including through joint training and the use of
air space.
It provides for authorising Ukrainian infantry or mechanised companies of a
strength of up to 160 per year to transit or be in Bulgaria for training.
The debate, characteristically stormy as are all on the issue of support
for Ukraine – with the pro-Kremlin minority party Vuzrazhdane and the Bulgarian
Socialist Party vehemently against – came immediately after MPs voted to
override President Roumen Radev’s veto on the agreement between Bulgaria’s
Interior Ministry and Ukraine’s Defence Ministry on Bulgaria supplying old
armoured personnel carriers to Ukraine, ratified by Parliament last month.
(Bulgarian media)
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