Retirees account for more than 10% of the personnel of the Bulgarian armed forces. This is made clear in a written reply given by outgoing Defence Minister Dragomir Zakov to a question by Democratic Bulgaria MP Martin Dimitrov.

There are 4,107 pensioners serving in the armed forces of Bulgaria, 3,153 have been working in the army for over 5 years. 1,325 have active military ranks, the remainder work as civilian experts. The personnel of Bulgaria’s armed forces totals around 40,000 - the exact number is classified information – with around 20,000 directly employed in the army, According to the latest data made public by Minister Zakov, there are around 7,000 vacancies in the army, dnevnik.bg writes.