Bulgaria receives first US F-16 fighter jet

GRAF IGNATIEVO, (Bulgaria): Bulgaria on Sunday welcomed its first US-made F-16 fighter jet ordered as part of the eastern-flank NATO member’s landmark efforts to modernise its air force.

To replace its Soviet-era MiG-29 jets, Bulgaria has ordered 16 American F-16s for a cost of around 2.4 billion euros ($2.7 billion), in the largest contract to overhaul its armed forces since the fall of communism in 1989.

At a ceremony marking the jet’s delivery at the Graf Ignatievo military base in central Bulgaria, Prime Minister Rossen Jeliazkov said those in attendance were celebrating “the inexorable and irreversible modernisation of the Bulgarian army.