site.btaDefence Ministry Probes Alleged Offer to Dutch Pilot in Bulgaria to Leak Info on F-35

The Bulgarian Defence Ministry will conduct a check in connection with a Dutch website report that information against pay had been asked from a Dutch pilot about the Netherlands F-35 jets carrying out joint air policing missions in Bulgaria, Bulgarian National Radio said on Tuesday, quoting the Ministry. "Such irregularities have not been reported about any allied mission in Bulgaria," the Ministry pointed out.

In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Defence Minister Dragomir Zakov thanked the Netherlands for helping Bulgaria defend its airspace. He did not mention the alleged offer for disclosure of information.

On April 16, https://www.nrc.nl quoted the Commander of the Royal Netherlands Air Force, Lieutenant General Dennis Luyt, as saying that at the start of the mission Dutch pilots had to hand over their personal phones "to prevent the leakage of personal information and extortion" after one of them had been offered to disclose information about the last-generation fighter jets.

Four Dutch F-35 jet fighters transferred to the Graf Ignatievo Air Base near Plovdiv (South Central Bulgaria) on April 6 to reinforce the heavily underequipped Bulgarian Air Force in guarding the country's airspace in the context of the war in Ukraine just several hundred kilometres to the northeast. Bulgaria has eight functioning Soviet-made MiG-29 fighters whose service life will expire in 2030.