The four-years contract signed by Bulgaria is estimated of 51,45 million dollars
Bulgaria has chosen Russian Aircraft Corporation MiG (RSK MiG) to overhaul and maintain its 15 ageing, Soviet-made MiG-29 fighter jets until 2022, Defence Ministry documents show. This was reported by Reuters.
The Black Sea state is a member of the European Union and NATO but deemed RSK MiG the only supplier able to provide reliable support for its MiG 29s, which date to when Sofia was part of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact alliance in the 1980s. Bulgaria therefore did not invite other bidders for the deal.
Sofia has said it needs to keep its Soviet-era aircraft operational after plans to buy eight new fighter jets from a fellow NATO state hit a procedural snag. The process is expected to start almost from scratch later this year.
The Defence Ministry planned to sign a four-year, 81.3-million-lev ($51.45 million) deal with RSK MiG in December but put it off following an appeal by Ukrainian arms exporter Ukrinmash.
Bulgaria’s anti-monopoly commission later rejected Ukraine’s appeal and a special Defence Ministry commission approved RSK MiG’s offer on March 6, according to the documents posted on the ministry’s website.
Some eastern European NATO allies that were once Soviet satellites still rely on Russian-made military jets - two-thirds of Poland’s military equipment dates from the pre-1991 Soviet era, for example. But NATO has encouraged eastern European members to develop, buy and operate new alliance weaponry compatible with older Soviet-era systems.
Sofia has said that between 2018 and 2022 it wants to upgrade to bring its fighter jets closer to compliance with NATO standards.
As it was reported earlier some of the Bulgarian military pilots refuse to perform flights using Russian MiG-29 fighters; they report safety issues in the obsolete aircraft. Atanas Zapryanov, the country’s deputy defense minister said this on October 25, 2017. The defense ministry accused the boycotting pilots of conducting a motivated campaign. He insisted that Bulgaria will be restoring all domestically-made MiG-29s and Russian-made Su-25s.
Bulgaria joined NATO back in 2004; most of its aircraft, however, is Russian-made. Currently, Bulgarian Air Force employs seven combat-ready Mig-29s. Previously, Bulgaria announced the 770 million Euro-large tender. The opinions in the authority divided; Boiko Borisov’s conservative government opposes the Parliament, President Rumen Radev, and local socialists. As the Cabinet offered to buy JAS Gripen fighters from Sweden, the Parliament vetoed this decision and supported the idea to purchase F-16s from Portugal and Eurofighter Typhoons.
Original post: 112.international
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Published on Aug 20, 2017
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