Overview
- Defense Minister Dimitar Stoyanov announced Tuesday that Bulgaria will not send any more weapons to Ukraine and urged talks to end what he called a war of attrition.
- The decision follows Rumen Radev’s April election win and marks a clear shift from Sofia’s earlier support, after which Bulgaria had supplied about 13 military aid packages and secret transfers of Soviet-era arms.
- Stoyanov framed the halt as a humanitarian and strategic choice, saying more weapons would only increase deaths without changing front-line realities.
- The government simultaneously unveiled plans to raise defense spending to NATO’s 5 percent of GDP target by 2030, a move meant to strengthen Bulgaria’s armed forces while changing its approach to external support.
- The change places Sofia between Moscow and Brussels: it signals a Russia-aligned foreign-policy turn but stops short of breaking with the EU because Bulgaria depends heavily on European funding and NATO membership.