site.btaNew Bulgarian Contingent with KFOR Regional Command-West Leaves for Kosovo

With a solemn ceremony on Thursday in Pleven, a new Bulgarian contingent was sent to the Kosovo Force (KFOR) Regional Command-West (RC-W). The ceremony was attended by Deputy Minister of Defence Radoslav Iliev, Deputy Chief of Defence Lieutenant General Krasimir Kanev, Commander of the Land Forces Major General Deyan Deshkov, Deputy Commander of the Joint Forces Command Rear Admiral Galin Manev, and representatives of local and state authorities.

At the beginning of the ceremony Kanev reviewed the troops. A blessing for health and success in the mission was performed by Father Krasimir Krastev from the Holy Trinity Church in Pleven. "The service of peace is the service of God," the priest said.

"It is a great honour and privilege for me to be with you at this solemn moment. Taking part in the NATO operation in Kosovo is a highly responsible task with significance for the security and peace in the region of the Western Balkans. Your mission is to ensure, guarantee, and demonstrate the Alliance's capabilities to maintain security and order in the region. You will carry out your tasks in an allied format. The importance of your mission is also emphasized by the new realities, complexity, dynamics, and difficult security environment in which we live today," Iliev said in his greeting to the military personnel. 

"In the context of increasingly dynamic changes in the global political and economic landscape, with existing conflicts proving difficult to resolve and the military factor becoming increasingly important on the international stage, the experience you gain in maintaining peace and stability will become increasingly valuable," Kanev said in his greeting to the participants in the military contingent. He added that the experience gained in such missions is important not only for the tasks that the military personnel will have in Kosovo, but also for their future professional careers.

The ceremony ended with a solemn march of the military contingent through Vazrazhdane Square.

The formation, with commander Captain Georgi Valkanov, consists of 97 military personnel. It will be deployed at the Camp Villaggio Italia, located near Peja in the western part of Kosovo. For six months, the Bulgarian military personnel will perform their duties in positions within the national support element, as military personnel in the KFOR Regional Command-West (RC-W) headquarters and as a manoeuvre company with a logistics section and medical unit within the multinational battalion of the RC-W of the NATO-led international peacekeeping mission in Kosovo.