After the meeting of the foreign policy and defence committees: The incident in Poland was not a deliberate attack

There is no direct threat to Bulgaria after the explosions in Poland, said the chairwoman of the parliamentary committee on foreign policy Ekaterina Zaharieva on November 16 after the extraordinary sitting of the two committees - on foreign policy and defence.

In Zaharieva's words, the investigation into the incident is ongoing and there is no need for Bulgaria to take further action beyond what it did in February.

"It is very important to stop the speculation that is being heard from both sides. On the one hand, that Russia deliberately attacked the territory of a NATO ally in order to escalate tensions. The other is that Ukrainian forces have done this in order to draw in NATO allies. There is no request from the Polish side, not even to activate Article 4, which is consultations, let alone Article 5," she said.

The incident was not a deliberate attack on Polish territory, there was no deliberate act, Defence Committee chairman Hristo Gadzhev added.

He said it would not have happened if it were not for the attack by Russia with over 100 missiles fired at Ukrainian infrastructure to leave Ukraine in the dark and cold during the winter. The Ukrainian side was defending its infrastructure and most likely missiles from their air defence missed the target and reached Poland, Gadzhev added.

Zaharieva recalled that more than 10 million Ukrainians were left without electricity.

"Leaving them in the dark and cold could lead to a new wave of refugees to Bulgaria," she said.

At the meeting, ministers said Ukraine would find it increasingly difficult to find spare parts to rebuild the power system and would likely turn to EU countries for such parts.

"It is very important to assist because if tens of millions of citizens are left in the dark and cold, it will be a humanitarian catastrophe," Zaharieva said.

At the meeting, the defence minister confirmed that Ukraine had requested generators, but there would be a meeting with the Ukrainian ambassador to find out exactly what type of generators.

Modernisation of part of the air defence with new systems are the MoD's priority, but this will cost money, Gadzhev said, adding that there should be a consensus in the National Assembly and society that Bulgaria should allocate funds to modernise its army.

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