Minister of Defense of Bulgaria: All promised Bulgarian APCs delivered to Ukraine

Bulgaria has sent to Ukraine all the BTR-60 armored personnel carriers that were promised last year.

Defense Minister Todor Tagarev announced this on March 14.

According to him, first, the transportation of armored vehicles from different sites across the country to Sofia was organized. This process began on January 29 and lasted 4 weeks.

The Bulgarian Ministry of Defense said that the first echelon of 30 vehicles left for Ukraine on March 7, and the last train with armored personnel carriers, according to the minister, had already left.

According to Tagarev, the total cost of the transfer of armored personnel carriers to Ukraine cost Bulgaria almost €87,000.

A total of 247 servicemen and civilians from the Logistics Support Command, the Ground Forces and the Military Police Service of Bulgaria were involved in various stages of the logistics operation to transport the BTR-60.

The process also involved 26 units of special equipment.

The transfer of armored vehicles from Bulgaria as part of military aid was announced in the summer of 2023, but was delayed because President Rumen Radev vetoed it, which was later overridden by the parliament.

In November 2023, Bulgaria’s National Assembly ratified an intergovernmental agreement between Sofia and Kyiv that regulates the transfer of 100 decommissioned armored personnel carriers to Ukraine.

These APCs have been in the inventory of the Bulgarian Ministry of the Interior since the 1980s.

They were not in use and the Bulgarian Interior Ministry spent money on their storage. A preliminary joint conclusion of the Bulgarian Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Internal Affairs showed that the transfer of armored vehicles would not harm Bulgaria’s defense capabilities.

It is worth noting that this is the first time that Bulgaria has transferred armored vehicles to Kyiv directly, and not through intermediaries, as it had done before.