On February 20, TASS reported that during shelling against the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, the Ukrainian army used grenade launchers manufactured in Bulgaria.
The agency referenced a spokesperson from the militia of the self-proclaimed republic. The report specified that the 30-millimeter shells for the grenade launchers that were used to shell the settlement of Zaytsevo are products from the military factories “Arsenal” AD in Kazanlak. “This fact clearly demonstrates how the West supplies Ukraine with deadly weapons that are destroying the peaceful residents of the republics in Donbas,” stated the Russian news agency.
This is not only not fake news, but it also cannot be characterized as news at all.
The reason is that, from an international legal perspective, there is no ban on arms sales to Ukraine, and the United States itself is the largest arms exporter to the former Soviet republic. In other words, if there were deals with Bulgarian manufacturers, including “Arsenal” AD, they are not illegal. Whether they are moral is a completely different question that does not carry significant weight in the military industry.
The OF-7 fragmentation shells are a development of NITI—Kazanlak and are produced not only at “Arsenal” but also at other military factories in Bulgaria, and they are sold only against regular certificates for the end user. Trade is not conducted with countries designated as embargoed under the so-called Wassenaar Arrangement from 1995—a agreement signed by 26 countries that establishes control over the export of certain conventional weapons and dual-use technologies to certain embargoed countries.
Bulgaria has been selling these grenades to Ukraine for over 20 years,
as the country is not on any embargo list.
Therefore, claiming that “the West has only now begun to arm the Ukrainian army with deadly weapons” to destroy the peaceful residents of the two illegal republics in Donbas is pure propaganda and manipulation of public opinion.
The management of “Arsenal” AD does not provide information related to the export of products manufactured in the Kazanlak arms factories. However, “Za istinata” (“For the Truth”) attempted to contact one of the owners of the factories, engineer Nikolai Ibushiev, to respond to the information in the TASS report, but this was not possible.
On the other hand, an expert on military-industrial issues, who wished to remain anonymous, shared with “Za istinata” (“For the Truth”) that
Bulgarian military factories sell weapons only in areas with actual or potential conflict.
Previously, weapons and ammunition produced in Bulgaria were also found in Syria, but neither the UN nor EU regulations prohibit the import of arms into a country experiencing civil war for years.
In 2016, the spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, stated that some of the weapons and ammunition found at that time in the Syrian city of Aleppo were produced in Bulgaria under a lapsed Russian license. According to her, since the late 1990s, Moscow and Sofia have been negotiating an agreement for a license to regulate the export of military products to third countries, but Bulgaria has been slow to finalize such a contract, Zakharova was quoted by OFFNews.
According to some observers, such as Dr. Mohd Abuasi from the Center for Middle Eastern Studies,
Bulgaria does not sell weapons directly to terrorists,
but only to countries that are not on embargo lists. Such countries include Saudi Arabia, Qatar, or the United States, for example. Abuasi argues that our country has been well aware that Bulgarian weapons are ending up in Syria through third parties. Other experts hold the opposite view, asserting that the resale or gifting of Bulgarian weapons to frontline countries is not the Bulgarian state’s problem. This is because the end-user certificate issued by the purchasing country guarantees that the weapons will not be used for terrorist purposes. Additionally, the country can only purchase the weapons if they are not on a restricted list. Therefore, often the final destination of the weapons is not the one specified in the end-user certificate, but rather countries where there are local military conflicts. A prime example of this is the Islamic State, which was armed through this scheme.
