SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) \u2014 Bulgaria has agreed to provide the Ukrainian army with some 100 armored personnel carriers, marking a turnaround in the NATO member\u2019s policy on sending military equipment to Kyiv following the appointment of a new,\u00a0pro-Western government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Direct arms supplies were rejected by previous interim governments, appointed by President Rumen Radev. He is sympathetic to Russia and recently\u00a0said that Ukraine was to be blamed\u00a0for the war and that supplying arms to Ukraine only prolongs the conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The parliament in Sofia late Friday approved by 148 votes to 52 the government\u2019s proposal to make the first shipment of heavy military equipment to Ukraine since the beginning of the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis equipment is no longer necessary for the needs of Bulgaria, and it can be of serious support to Ukraine in its battle to preserve the country\u2019s independence and territorial integrity after the unjustified and unprovoked Russian aggression,\u201d the Parliament\u2019s decision said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Soviet-made armored vehicles were delivered in the 1980s to Bulgaria \u2014 then an ally of the Soviet Union in the Warsaw Pact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bulgaria, which joined NATO in 2004, still maintains stocks of Soviet-designed weapons and has numerous factories making ammunition for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although Parliament\u00a0approved in the principle\u00a0at the end of last year the provision of military aid to Ukraine, it left the decision about the parameters of such aid to the executive, and amid political instability in Bulgaria over the past months, previous administrations had rejected the idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the new government, appointed in June, has now moved to send the armored vehicles to Ukraine along with armaments and spare parts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe must give armored personnel carriers to Ukraine because Ukrainians are fighting not only for their freedom but also for ours,\u201d said liberal lawmaker Ivaylo Mirchev.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The decision sparked criticism from the Socialist party and pro-Moscow nationalists from the Revival party who voted against it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think we can help Ukraine with military decisions and sending military equipment, but we can help it as a peace mediator, as a country that has specific relations with both sides,\u201d said the deputy speaker of the National Assembly and of the Socialist Party, Kristian Vigenin, on Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) \u2014 Bulgaria has agreed to provide t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2657"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2658,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2657\/revisions\/2658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}