Bulgaria to buy eight F-16 US fighter jets

Bulgaria will buy eight F-16 fighter jets to replace its ageing Soviet-built MiG-29 planes, its deputy defence minister said yesterday.

The price tag for the Lockheed Martin jets equipped with air-to-air missiles and visualisation and surveillance systems is $1.26 billion (1.12 billion euros), said Deputy Defence Minister Atanas Zaprianov.

The government had initially budgeted 1.8 billion leva (920 million euros) for the purchase, but the purchase is still expected to be approved by parliament.