Rutte to Bulgaria for consultation and visit Dutch F-35s

Prime Minister Mark Rutte will visit Bulgaria on Monday. He visits the Dutch F-35s that are stationed there to protect the eastern flank of the NATO area. Talks are also planned with Prime Minister Kiril Petkov.

The fighters and 90 support personnel are stationed at Graf Ignatievo air base near Plovdiv. The Netherlands sent the F-35s at NATO’s request after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. They will monitor Bulgarian airspace until the end of this month.

After the visit to the base, Rutte travels to the capital Sofia for consultations with the government. The war in Ukraine is at the center of the talks. Bulgaria has long been one of Russia’s closest friends in the EU, but the war in Ukraine has drastically changed that position.

That did not go down well in Moscow. Russia, meanwhile, has cut off the Bulgarians – like the Poles – from gas supplies because the government in Sofia refused to pay for the gas in rubles. The country imported more than 90 percent of its gas from Russia. EU neighbors are now supplying Bulgaria with gas.

Bulgaria is also very dependent on Russian oil. The European Union is currently trying to agree on an oil boycott of Russia. The aim is to have it by the end of this year. Bulgaria, the poorest country in the EU, hopes to get a postponement of the boycott.