Deputy Minister of Defence: Our army is secured, munitions for Ukraine are nearing the end of their shelf life

• The army is provided with the necessary weapons and ammunition stocks, and there is no threat to our wartime reserves.
• We are not going to provide Ukraine with combat equipment of the regular armed forces or of the reserve.
• We will send munitions from the operational stock which are nearing their shelf life.

This was stated by the Ministry of Defence on July 10 in response to the criticism made by President Radev that the provision of military aid to Ukraine may exhaust the necessary quantities of equipment and ammunition for the staff and reserve formations of the Bulgarian armed forces.

The unblocking of ammunition at the end of its shelf life from the operational reserve, which we will send to Kiev after modernisation at the VMZ Sopot plant, is advantageous for the army because we will receive new ammunition instead. The MoD also explained that there is no problem for the President to get acquainted with the new list of demands brought by Zelensky during his visit to Bulgaria.

The defence ministry explained that it was in the army's interest to dispose of certain amounts of ammunition, which will be provided to Ukraine after modernization at the VMZ-Sopot. In exchange, it would receive new ones from Bulgarian military plants.

The release of ammunition and its refreshment through the contract between the Defence Ministry and VMZ Sopot is a measure that allows the state to dispose of ammunition from the operational stock. It has been stored for a long time in our armed forces and is at the end of its service life.

"If we don't unblock them and get rid of them now, with the possibility of them being refurbished with new ones, we will have to destroy them in a few years, spend money on that and additionally spend money on buying new ones. This activity in the MoD is being carried out in strict accordance with the decision of the National Assembly of 9 December last year, the decision of the Council of Ministers and the latest decision of the National Assembly to accelerate this process. The acceleration of this process is possible, first of all, because there are production capacities in IMZ Sopot that allow them to accelerate the implementation of the first contract that we have with them. The unblocking of stocks is being carried out according to strict MoD and HQ methodology, Bulgarian logistics specialists are working, and the schedule does not allow us to completely dispose of operational stocks. On the contrary. We will unblock stocks once we have received under the first contract the stocks they have promised to produce for us. So, for me, the declaration of some politicians and the media who say that we will unblock everything in the warehouses and then wait for them to be replenished is not accurate," Deputy Defence Minister Atanas Zapryanov said.

Deputy Minister Zapryanov assured that the army will unblock old ammunition only when it receives new ones from VMZ-Sopot.

“We will unblock stocks when we receive the new stocks that have been promised to be produced for the Defence Ministry, the Deputy Defence Minister explained.

He disagreed with criticism that the purpose of the military mobilisation plan withdrawn from parliament was to revise it to shrink its ammunition needs and send the excess to Ukraine.

"All those wartime formations that parliament has obliged the MoD to mobilise, their stocks are available. If we have to mobilise now, we can form them, arm them, equip them and they will be ready to fight."

Gen. Zapryanov explained that the ammunition of the active armed forces would not be touched.

"We will unblock only the wartime stocks and only for the wartime formations. We are not unblocking the operational stocks of our current peacetime brigades, regiments, etc."

In the prepared second tranche of aid to Ukraine there will be neither combat equipment from our active armed forces, nor canned for warfare.

Rumen Radev: I have always defended the Bulgarian interest, the plans of Council of Ministers may leave our army without reserves for years to come

In response to President Radev’s criticism that he had not received the new list of weapons and ammunition brought by Zelensky when he visited Bulgaria, Zapryanov said:

"If the President wants such information, there is a procedure by which he can request it and no one can refuse him. The President is allowed 100% access to all information in the armed forces."

On Friday, Defence Minister Todor Tagarev announced in Parliament that Zelensky's list included everything but aircraft.

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