Dimitar Stoyanov, the acting Minister of Defense of Bulgaria, shared his thoughts after the end of the two-day meeting of the defence ministers of the NATO countries. He stated that Russia and his actions are currently a risk to Bulgaria’s national security. But still, things are not so bad or out of hands as Bulgaria, and other NATO members don’t have any threat of a military conflict with Russia.
Stoyanov added, “Article 5 of the Washington Treaty will be promptly triggered if Bulgaria is threatened or attacked. It involves every NATO nation in the battle including Bulgaria. I don’t think any country would like this, not even Russia. The conflict can result at the beginning of world war 3, directly putting the entire civilization at risk”.
After the two-day meeting, Stoyanov highlighted that three main topics were discussed in the discussion. The deterrence and defence pact’s strategic foundation was the first problem. The multinational combat group is in mind as Bulgaria starts the implementation process. Bulgaria was chosen as the host nation, and Italy as the framework nation. The handover of command to Italy will happen on October 17.
Bulgaria has confirmed that it will participate in the mission in Iraq and the KFOR deployments in Kosovo and Althea in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Due to approximately 100 Bulgarian military members present in Bosnia units, it pays special attention to Althea. A UN resolution must be passed in November for this operation to continue. It is anticipated that this will occur.
The defence minister stated that Bulgaria could contribute hardware or software for the upcoming integrated European air defence system. Bulgaria is one of the 15 nations that have signed a declaration of intent to establish the European Air Shield Initiative today. He also explained that it is a network of ground-based air defence systems.
Although no particular systems have been chosen, Stoyanov continued that the USA and Israel have them based on experience. Even Bulgaria prefer this to happen as soon as possible, but the nation’s home-foreign recognition system has not been upgraded.