Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Rumen Radev speaks during a doorstep at the NATO leaders’ summit in Ankara, Turkey, July 8, 2026. [Yves Herman/Reuters]
Bulgaria, a NATO and EU member, will seek parliamentary approval on Monday for up to eight US tanker aircraft to be stationed at a military airport, Prime Minister Rumen Radev has said, after a move to place such planes at a civilian airport triggered controversy.
The government will ask parliament to approve a request by Washington to station tanker planes at the Bezmer military facility to support the US military’s operations in the Middle East, Radev told an annual conference of Bulgarian ambassadors in Sofia.
A move earlier this year to station the aircraft, used mainly for airborne refueling of other aircraft, at a civilian airport in the capital Sofia without prior parliamentary approval, sparked controversy and the planes left last month.
“The problem was that the military planes were based at a civilian airport in close proximity to Sofia. That is why we proposed to our allies to occupy military airfields,” Radev said.
