The Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, has stated that Russia is trying to understand why the US military needs to have bases in Bulgaria.

In a lengthy interview for The Financial Times Thursday Lavrov commented on the Russia-NATO council and its founding documents. He said "Russia- NATO Council founding documents stipulate several very important things..... including agreement that there would be no deployment of substantial combat forces on the territory of new NATO members."

Lavrov continued; "So when military bases, or American military bases were put into Bulgaria and Romania, we have been raising, invoking this provision of Russia- NATO Council, trying to understand what the need for these bases is and how this would fit into this commitment. And we were told that those basis would not represent substantial combat forces."

Foreign Minister Lavrov went on to question what exactly a ‘substantial combat force' is and concluded that Russia and NATO are still trying to come to an agreement on this issue.