The shipment of armored personnel carriers, the decision to transfer which to Ukraine was made by Bulgaria earlier, began on Wednesday, according to the website of the Bulgarian news channel BTV.

A total of 110 armored personnel carriers will be transferred to Ukraine, but they will be delivered in sets of six. The Bulgarian Ministry of Defense is responsible for organizing their transportation.

"The first armored personnel carrier was loaded onto the platform and departed from the Gendarmerie base in Sofia to the railway station in Novy Iskar," according to the statement.

It is reported that at the beginning of this year, the text of the decision on the gratuitous transfer of armored personnel carriers to the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine was published in the government's State Herald.

As reported, the Bulgarian Parliament on November 22, 2023 supported at first reading a bill on the ratification of the Agreement between the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Bulgaria and the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine on the free provision of armored vehicles, signed in Sofia on August 8, 2023 and in Kyiv on November 13, 2023. However, on December 4, Bulgarian President Rumen Radev vetoed the law on the ratification of the agreement because, according to him, the people's representatives were not sufficiently familiar with the specific parameters of the transfer. On December 8, the Bulgarian parliament overrode the president's veto.

The agreement stipulates that Bulgaria will supply armored personnel carriers and existing weapons, as well as spare parts. The cars were purchased in the 1980s and remained mothballed for several decades. In addition, the Bulgarian People's Assembly voted overwhelmingly on December 8 to provide additional military aid to Ukraine, the possibility of using Bulgarian airspace for training Ukrainian F-16 pilots, and allowing a limited number of Ukrainian military personnel to transit or stay in Bulgaria for training.