For more than 15 years, the United States and the Republic of Bulgaria have enjoyed a robust security partnership as treaty Allies, with a shared commitment to the security of the Balkans, Eastern Mediterranean, and Black Sea regions, reads a fact sheet on US Security Cooperation with Bulgaria, published on the US Department of State website.

Over the last five years, the United States has provided more than $238 million in security assistance to Bulgaria to increase military professionalization, human resourcing capabilities, cyber security, divestiture of Soviet and Russian legacy equipment, maritime domain awareness, and NATO interoperability. Bulgaria’s annual defense spending continues to increase on average and is on track to meet the NATO goal of two percent by 2024. The United States has $1.4 billion in active government-to-government sales cases with Bulgaria under the Foreign Military Sales system, the US Department of State writes.