The largest one-time military aid package – which includes 100 armored vehicles from the Bulgarian police stockpile, mostly infantry carrier vehicles – was sent to Ukraine in what was Sofia's first official decision to help Kyiv with heavy equipment, Bulgarian authorities announced on Thursday.

As Euractiv reported on Friday, the military equipment was bought 40 years ago to carry out the so-called Revival process and it has never been used.

"At the same time, it generates costs for storage and maintenance. […] The Ukrainians will ensure this technique is useful to them," member of the governing coalition We Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria Ivaylo Mirchev said.

The decision on the armored vehicles was announced only a week after the visit of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Bulgaria.

The publication also said that this is the first military package from Bulgaria to Ukraine about which information has been published. The military aid until now was secret, but the unofficial information was that Bulgaria was helping Ukraine with ammunition.

Bulgaria hopes to receive replacement military capabilities from the United States after providing the armored vehicles. The Bulgarian army has announced an order for nearly $1 billion to purchase modern Western armored vehicles for the infantry, but the procedure has not yet been completed.

In December last year, the caretaker government of President Rumen Radev refused to send the old Soviet S-300 anti-aircraft systems, which Bulgaria and Ukraine want, in exchange for receiving modern U.S. air defense systems worth $200 million. The new pro-EU Bulgarian government hopes the Unites States offer is still valid.

"Radev is very concerned about the Bulgarian army, but he missed the chance. We saw that a modern air defense system also shot down Putin's supersonic missiles in Ukraine," Mirchev said.