Professor Todor Dimitrov Tagarev (; born April 18, 1960 in Stamboliyski, Bulgaria) is a Bulgarian military expert and politician who is currently the Minister of Defence of Bulgaria. He was previously in office during the Caretaker Government of Marin Raykov.
Early life and education
Todor Tagarev was born in Stamboliyski on April 18 1960. He graduated from the Kiril Popov Mathematics school in Plovdiv, after which he obtained an Engineer's degree in telemechanics from the Georgi Benkovski Higher Airforce Institute in Dolna Mitropoliya. He then proceeded to defend a dissertation at the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy in Moscow and at the Air Command and Staff College in the USA.
Professional career
From 1982 to 1986, Tagarev served as an Air Weapons Officer with the Twenty-fifth Fighter-Bomber Regiment of the Air Force of Bulgaria at Cheshnegirovo. He was a lecturer at the Georgi Benkovski Airforce Institute from 1989 to 1992. From 1994 to 1998 he was a research worker at the Institute of Management and Systems Research and the Institute of Space Research of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, where he continued to work as a senior research worker from 2002 to 2004. From 1999 to 2001 he was the director of the Defence Planning Directorate and the Armaments Policy Directorate in the Ministry of Defence. From 2004 to 2008 he was the head of the Department of Defence Management at the Georgi Rakovski Military Academy. From 2005 to 2008 Todor Tagarev was a member of the NATO Research and Technology Board and a national representative in its Systems Analysis and Research Panel. He has considerable experience in leading and participating in international and national interdisciplinary research on security and defence issues. His scientific and applied publications have been translated into Arabic, Armenian, Bahasa, Georgian, Dari, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Ukrainian, Hungarian and French. Since 2008 he has been in the Institute of Parallel Information Processing of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, now the Institute of Information and Communication Technologies, as Head of the Information Technology in Security Section and the Centre for Security and Defence Management. In September 2009-2010 he was Advisor to the Minister of Defence on Strategic Defence Management.
Political career
Tagarev was first appointed as the Minister of Defence of Bulgaria by President Rosen Plevneliev on March 13 2013 as part of the Caretaker Government of Marin Raykov.
On June 6 2023 Tagarev was sworn in as the new Minister of Defence of Bulgaria as part of the newly formed Denkov Government.