Bulgaria will No Longer Stop Ammunition that it Produced to go to Ukraine

Bulgaria will no longer set conditions for ammunition produced on its territory, intended for other countries, not to go to Ukraine.

This became clear from the answer that the Minister of Defense Todor Tagarev gave to a question of Bulgarian media "Club Z".

Tagarev participated in a two-day meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels.

"I can't say it any clearer than that. Both I and the Prime Minister (Nikolai Denkov) said very clearly that we will help Ukraine with the very clear understanding that this is not only a moral commitment to a country close to us and a victim of aggression, but also our strategic interest to ensure security in our region," he said.

At the European Council on March 23, Bulgarian President Rumen Radev was adamant that "we will insist that the mentioned ammunition does not go to Ukraine".

Ammunition from Bulgaria is still going to Ukraine and this has not been a secret for a long time, Tagarev recalled. He also pointed out that our country intends to work directly with Bulgarian companies when Kyiv wants to buy ammunition. Thus, there will be no intermediaries, no funds will be lost and no other risks are expected.

The minister was unable to say when Bulgaria can be expected to join the European Defense Agency (EDA) project for joint procurement of ammunition for Ukraine. In an interview published yesterday in "Politico", he vowed that this would happen, but he also did not specify a time frame.

"Unfortunately, when this project was announced, we expressed passivity. And this initiative also provided an opportunity for investment in our defense industry to move to NATO standards. We know that Bulgaria traditionally specializes in the production of ammunition, but according to Soviet models. And we will gradually abandon these samples. There are plans to switch to the 155 caliber. The important thing is that our industry maintains its capacity according to these new standards," said Tagarev.

He could not tell what was to come:

"We will see what the possibilities are. The war wants a quick solution. If we are passive, no one will stop and wait for us. We will see how open the possibilities are. At the moment I cannot say firmly whether we will receive one request or the other."

"Bulgaria, however, has not reacted to other initiatives suggesting serious participation of the defense industry", added the minister. Among them is, for example, the maintenance of armored vehicles. "We have a fairly large factory, part of TEREM holding". According to information available to Tagarev, there is no development on the idea in our country, but there is capacity.

There are warehouses in Bulgaria, the minister briefly answered the question of whether we will store ammunition. The occasion was the memorandum signed yesterday for our participation in the Multinational Ammunition Warehousing Initiative (MAWI).

"The memorandum is about creating conditions for logistical support of operations in the union territories if necessary. It is about replenishing the stocks of ammunition, which many allies have already handed over to Ukraine," explained Todor Tagarev.

The defense minister confirmed to Politico that he plans to create a structure to combat Russian disinformation.

"I don't know if you noticed, but being outside the ministry, I watched that when Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, for several days the Military TV Channel (VTK) was broadcasting 'Seventeen Moments of Spring'. This will certainly be changed," he assured.

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