The Bulgarian Navy received an additional Airbus Helicopter AS365N3 + Dauphin II (tail number 905) naval helicopter on December 6, 2019, at the Chaika airfield in Varna. This unit was procured as a replacement of the AS565MB Panther that crashed in 2017.

The head of the Bulgarian Ministry of Defence (MoD) alerts that the Navy’s modernization efforts might get side-lined due to costly acquisition of new, multirole fighter jets from USA.

The Bulgarian Ministry of Defence informed that three companies decided to make a bid in the ongoing tender for new modular patrol vessels. The preferred bidder should be announced this summer.