The Romanian base "Mihail Koglunicanu", which is located not far from Bulgaria, is becoming the largest NATO air base in Europe, which aims to protect the south-eastern flank of the alliance from Russia, BGNES reported.
The construction of the base, which is located in the county of Custendža/Constanța and is named after a famous Romanian liberal politician from the 19th century, will cost 2.5 billion dollars. It will have an area of 2.8 thousand hectares and it will be possible to deploy 10,000 military personnel.
Mihail Koglunicanu will have new runways, weapons platforms, hangars for military aircraft, as well as modern barracks and training grounds. It will be a real military town because it is planned to have schools, hospitals, kindergartens and shops.
The base will be bigger than Rammstein in Germany. Therefore, its strategic position contributes. It is located only 20 km from the Black Sea coast, 300 km from Odessa and 400 km from the port of Sevastopol in Russian-occupied Crimea.
Security in the Black Sea and the growing role of Romania
The battle for control of the Black Sea is becoming increasingly fierce and visible. Its future depends entirely on the fate of the war in Ukraine. The evidence for this has been abundant in the past 2+ years since the Russian invasion began.
The Black Sea is key to the continent's security. The concern of Brussels and Washington about the large Russian presence was most seriously manifested when, in December 2022, the US Foreign Policy Committee adopted the Black Sea Security Act, which defined the region as an "arena of Russian aggression".
The authorities in Bucharest are aware of the risks of Moscow's desire to push out the Western presence in the Black Sea and Russia's desire to make it a "closed sea". For this reason, since January 2023, there are AWACS aircraft in Romanian bases, which monitor Russian actions in the region and aim to strengthen the defense position of the Alliance in the Black Sea region.
In the vicinity of "Mihail Koglunicanu" is the largest Romanian port of Constanta/Custendža, which is among the ten largest in Europe. There is also a heavy military presence here.
The defactoring of Bulgaria
Against the background of the successes that Romania has demonstrated in the modernization of its army, the absence of Bulgaria is striking. Although we are a Black Sea country and this should increase our role and help our modernization - military and technical, such signs are not observed.
Our country never managed to take advantage of the opportunity in the first months of the Russian invasion to replace its old Soviet weapons with more modern NATO ones. Although in 2023 it was able to take a more decisive position in support of Ukraine and move forward projects to purchase new military systems for the army, we still lack a serious presence of the Alliance, as we see in Romania and even Albania. And the reason for this largely lies in the political instability that occurred in 2021, which prevents a coherent and purposeful defense and foreign policy. I BGNES
