The US is drawing Bosnia into NATO: they promise an additional $40 million for the army
US Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) Michael Murphy announced that his country will provide an additional $40 million to support the BiH Armed Forces.
Balkan media reported this, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
Since the creation of the Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Murphy (pictured) said, the United States has been their number one partner.
“There is no other country that cares more about Bosnia and Herzegovina and supports its Armed Forces than the United States. And the United States will do more. I am pleased to announce that the United States is committing an additional $17 million this year to support the Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Murphy said Dec. 1.
According to him, these funds will be used for cybersecurity infrastructure and the acquisition of advanced simulators for training combat helicopter pilots.
“We are also investing an additional $23 million in new Bell Huey II helicopters to further modernize the BiH Armed Forces helicopter fleet,” Murphy added.
The first four Bell Huey II combat helicopters were delivered to the BiH Armed Forces in December 2021. They were brought to the airfield in Sarajevo on an An-124 plane of the Ukrainian Antonov airline.
At the moment, among the Balkan countries, only Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia do not plan to join NATO. Croats and Bosniak Muslims are in favor of BiH joining the North Atlantic Alliance, whose political representatives make corresponding statements that have no legal force. At the same time, the leader of the Bosnian Serbs, Milorad Dodik, has repeatedly stated that the Serbs in the highest bodies of BiH will not allow this country to be drawn into NATO.
In March 2022, Russian Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina Igor Kalabukhov said that BiH has the right to decide whether to be a NATO member, but Moscow reserves the right to respond to such a possibility.
“If BiH decides to be a party to something, it is an internal matter. But another thing is our reaction. Using the example of Ukraine, we showed what we expect. If there is a threat, we will react,” Kalabukhov said then.
Как reported “PolitNavigator”, in October-November large-scale military exercises from 20 countries took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Their formal organizer was the EU military mission in BiH (EUFOR), but the real planning was carried out by NATO structures.
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