Russian military

Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev warned that Russia is planning to wage a "hybrid warfare" campaign aimed at destabilising the whole of Europe.

Plevneliev called on the EU and NATO to do more to counter the rising threat of Russian aggression.

There are currently eight Russian warships massed off of Syria confronting seven NATO ships, according to Turkish military sources. In a written response to the Hürriyet Daily News, Turkish General Staff sources gave a breakdown of the types of ship in the face-off.

The Bulgarian Air Forces urgently need new multirole aircraft and a decision on the maintenance of currently available MiG-29s, the chair of Parliament's Defense Committee has said.

Russia on Oct.1 rejected accusations that Moscow had bombed moderate rebel factions fighting President Bashar al-Assad instead of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters and had hit civilians.

Russia conducted its first airstrikes in Syria, claiming to target ISIS. 20 missions were carried out on Wednesday. US officials have expressed serious doubt as to the real motives behind the strikes.

US President Barack Obama didn't know about State Department's move to ask Bulgaria and Greece to deny overflight permissions to Syria-bound Russian planes, Bloomberg says.

A piece on BloombergView reads that "there's disagreement inside the US government" on how to act to prevent Russian from flying combat missions a new air base inside Syria.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday it is early to speak about a possible participation of the country in military operations against the Islamic State (IS) group.

The Kremlin on Wednesday denied media allegations that the Russian military was taking part in aistrikes against Islamic State targets in Syria.

"No need to believe these reports," said spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

Two pilots were killed when a strategic bomber with seven people on board crashed in far eastern Russia on July 14, the defence ministry said, the latest in a string of military aircraft accidents.

Russian Air Force will redeploy more than 100 aircraft to operational air fields over the next 24 hours as part of snap drills, the Defence Ministry announced on Tuesday.