Bulgaria hands over 100 Soviet armoured personnel carriers to Ukraine

Sofia handed over to Kyiv one hundred Soviet armoured personnel carriers that had been in storage in Bulgaria since the late 1980s.

"The first echelon of 30 wagons left for Ukraine on 7 March; the last echelon left today. To carry out logistics operations for the transport, loading, reinforcement and camouflage of military equipment, 26 units of special equipment were used," reads a statement on the website of the Bulgarian Ministry of Defence.

This includes one hundred BTR-60 armoured personnel carriers that were stored in the warehouses of the Ministry of the Interior and were not used.

It was planned that the armoured vehicles would arrive in Ukraine last summer, but Bulgarian President Rumen Radev vetoed the shipment of the armoured personnel carriers.

Last year, in December, the country's parliament overrode the president's ban. At the end of last year, the Bulgarian parliamentary defence committee decided to transfer to Ukraine faulty portable air defence systems, malfunctioning air defence equipment and missiles of various types.

The Soviet wheeled armoured personnel carrier BTR-60 was introduced in 1959. It was used by Soviet troops in a number of armed conflicts and was in service until the early 2000s. In total, at least 15,000 units of this vehicle were produced.