Bulgaria decided to 2020 to abandon the Russian fighters
The head of the Ministry of defense of Bulgaria Velizar Shalamanov said about creating a program to reduce the country's dependence on weapons and components produced in Russia. in view of the reasons for this decision in an interview Mediapool. Bg Minister cited the high cost, complexity of service, and corruption of purchase of equipment of the Russian Federation. As part of the list of actions which will last until 2020, Bulgaria plans to spend 1 billion leva (680 million) for the procurement of multi-role fighters produced in the countries of NATO, instead of the Russian MiG-21, MiG-29 and su-25 standing army of this state. In addition, Bulgaria plans to buy one new submarine and several ships for the Navy of the country. Velizar Shalamanov said that this program will enable the country to increase defence spending to 2% of GDP, instead of 1, 3%that it spends now. While acknowledging that " for many years we had different investment programs to improve the army, but they remain only on paper due to lack of funds ". Bulgaria is not the first country that tries to withdraw from the Russian military equipment. First of Croatia said about the readiness of the U.S.-Croatian cooperation to give Ukraine 13 helicopters MI-8MTV-1 in exchange for American Sikorsky UH-60.