Sofia, Bulgaria: For the past time, there has been political chaos in Bulgaria in regard to sending military aid to Ukraine. A recent statement has been made by a former head of the Kintex arms plant Alexander Mihailov claiming that weapons worth 200 million leva have been exported by Bulgaria to the war-torn country via Romania to Poland route.
The statement was made by Mihailov today (June 8) while he addressed reporters. If his claim is valid, it might again ignite flux in the coalition government led by Prime Minister Kiril Petkov.
He then revealed that the primary route of supplying these arms to Ukraine was via some firms established in Poland. Not only this, but another controversial remark has been made by Mihailov where he said that the Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Assen Vassilev was aware of the custom bills of lading about the exports.
According to him, the leadership at the largest armaments factory in Bulgaria – VMZ-Sopot arms plant has been changed as its’ officials denied repairing the military equipment of Ukraine.
Mihailov was fired from his position by Economy Minister Kornelia Ninova on the grounds of irregularity, which has been clearly refused by the former head of the Kintex arms plant.
This was not the first time that such claims have been made by Mihailov. Earlier in the month of April, similar kinds of claims were stated by him, but this time he had shared some in-depth details.
He then informed that many flights took over in March, April and May this year from Bulgarian airports to Poland’s Rzeszów Airport, carrying weapons, mostly 122mm shells for the Grad BM-21. The exact number of the flights is known by Minister Genova from the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry’s consular relations directorate.
Clearing his statements, he emphasized that the Ukrainian airport is just 78 km far from that of Poland.