US paying contractor to quietly supply Bulgarian 155mm shells to Ukraine

  US paying contractor to quietly supply Bulgarian 155mm shells to Ukraine

A $402 million contract suggests the former Soviet-bloc country is now producing NATO-standard artillery rounds.

For months, Bulgaria’s pro-Russian president fought to keep his country from joining an EU effort to make 155mm artillery shells for Ukraine. He appeared to lose that battle in June, when the country’s pro-Ukraine defense minister declared that the NATO ally would “not exclude” the possibility that domestic firms would produce the ammunition.

But according to Army and U.S. contracting documents, Bulgaria has been providing 155mm shells to Ukraine all along—through the United States, with deliveries scheduled through next year.

The hitherto unreported deal sheds light on how the United States has procured the coveted munition, how Bulgaria is delicately balancing its foreign policy, and how some small companies have unseated major defense giants amid the stresses of the Ukraine war.

Ukraine’s hunger for shells has defined the artillery-centric war, with Ukrainian gunners firing as many as 240,000 rounds a month, or 12 times the U.S.’s monthly production. The U.S. effort to feed Ukrainian cannons has taken many forms, but one of the largest is a $522 million U.S. Army contract awarded in January to defense giant Northrop Grumman and a smaller company, Global Military Products. Delivery was to start in March, the Army said.

The contract announcement (along with a correction issued later) said the two firms would compete for smaller orders under the $522 million cap through 2027. But information posted to the Federal Procurement Data System shows that the bulk of the money—$402 million—has already been allocated to Global Military Products.

It also indicates where the shells are coming from: Bulgaria.

The award stands in contrast to the declarations of Bulgarian politicians, particularly Russian-leaning President Rumen Radev, who said in March that Bulgaria would never supply the round.

Even Bulgarian officials sympathetic to Ukraine noted that their largely Soviet-equipped army has no stocks of the NATO-designed ammunition and said that their country has only “experimental production” capabilities.  

And after Radev was overridden by the new, pro-European government that formed in June, officials regretfully explained that Bulgaria would be unable to swiftly contribute to the European Union’s plan to send one million 155mm rounds to Ukraine.

“Unfortunately, when this project was announced, we expressed passivity,” Defense Minister Todor Tagarev said.

The U.S. contracting documents, however, imply the existence of major 155mm production capabilities in Bulgaria, experts said.

“Manufactured in Bulgaria is the most straightforward explanation here,” said Greg Sanders, deputy director of the Defense-Industrial Initiatives Group at think-tank CSIS.

Others concurred, such as Mathew George, a senior researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, and Jerry McGinn, a former senior career official in the Defense Department’s Office of Manufacturing and Industrial Base Policy who is now the executive director of the Greg and Camille Baroni Center for Government Contracting at George Mason University.

The $402 million contract could buy as many as 800,000 155mm shells at $500 apiece, though George cautioned that shipping, packaging, and other services would likely drive the per-unit cost higher.