A few days ago I warned that Bulgaria was trying to acquire the last Polish MiG-29s that Poland planned to provide to Ukraine. The Ministry of Defense was quick to deny it. Hours ago, the Polish state refuted the Bulgarian MoD.
On July 23, the MoD announced that there were no negotiations for the purchase of the Polish aircraft. Just a day later, Minister Dimitar Stoyanov admitted that he had personally sent a letter that he had talked to his Polish colleague and that "it is not just about spare parts". And yesterday the Polish Minister of Defense was categorical: "the Bulgarians want to buy the planes.".
It turns out that the government is actually studying the purchase of the last 14 Polish MiG-29s - planes that Poland is decommissioning due to the dwindling resources and the lack of prospects for modernization. Poland is moving towards F-35 stealth fighters. Romania bought 32 used F-16s from Norway. However, the Bulgarian government is going around the remnants of the Warsaw Pact and looking for more MiGs, provoking ironic reactions from partners and turning us into NATO's scumbags.
The managerial logic behind such a decision is like that of a person who is the last remaining owner of a "Moskvich" in the neighborhood. Instead of changing cars and learning to drive a modern model, he goes to the car morgues in Poland and Hungary to buy up the last Muscovites, dismantle them and use their parts to strengthen his own for a few more years. However, we are not talking about a personal car and personal money here.
We are talking about national security and the money of Bulgarian taxpayers.
Over € 44,000,000 has been planned for the operation of the Bulgarian MiG-29s in 2026 alone. To these can now be added an unknown price for the Polish aircraft, transport, technical assessment, spare parts, repairs and certification. How much exactly this new operation to extend the life of the Soviet aviation relic will cost is not clear.
Bulgaria must be protected and it is clear that the transition to the F-16 cannot happen overnight. But that is precisely why a responsible country should have had a real transition plan long ago - to use one of the many options for used F-16s that we have had over the years.
There is an even more absurd side. Ukraine has the technical capacity and experience in repairing the MiG-29. In 2022, there was even discussion that the Lutsk Motor Plant would carry out the main part of the repair of six Bulgarian engines. The humiliation is ahead: to try to take the Polish MiGs from under the nose of the attacked Ukraine, and then ask the Ukrainians to help us repair ours. And perhaps that is exactly what we should do - ask Ukraine to modernize our existing MiG-29s.
The government should immediately publish the letters sent to Poland and Hungary, say exactly what it requested, how many aircraft or parts it intends to acquire, what the estimated total cost is, and why instead of an accelerated transition to Western equipment it continues to pour money into the Soviet aviation ecosystem.
Bulgarian pilots deserve modern aircraft, weapons, and training, not the state financing the nostalgia of a generation of senior military personnel.
The MiG-29 has a worthy place in the history of Bulgarian military aviation. But history should be respected, not endlessly repaired.