Dimitar Stoyanov (military officer)

Stoyanov was born on 28 October 1968 in Svilengrad, a town in Haskovo Province in southern Bulgaria. He finished the High School of Mathematics in Haskovo in 1986 and then enrolled at the Georgi Benkovski Higher Air Force School in Dolna Mitropoliya, from which he graduated in 1991. He later studied at the Command Staff College of the Georgi Rakovski Military Academy in Sofia from 1999 to 2001, and in 2010–2011 he attended the Maxwell Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, United States. == Military career ==

Stoyanov began his military career in 1991 as an aircraft technician in the 19th Fighter Aviation Regiment stationed at Uzundzhovo. From 1993 to 1995 he served as a senior technician in the same unit, and between 1995 and 1998 he headed a group at the 4th Fighter Air Base at Uzundzhovo. He was subsequently transferred to the Third Fighter Air Base Graf Ignatievo, where between 1999 and 2009 he rose through several engineering positions to become Deputy Commander for Aviation Equipment and Armament. He was Chief of Staff of the base in 2009–2010 and again from 2011 to 2013 following his studies in the United States. In 2013 he moved to the Air Force Command as head of the Aviation Equipment and Armament Sector, and in 2014 he was appointed Deputy Chief of Staff of the Air Force Command. He served as Chief of Staff of the Bulgarian Air Force from 2015 to 2016. His military ranks progressed from lieutenant (1991) to colonel (2008). == Political career ==

Secretary General to President Radev , with whom Stoyanov has been closely associated since 2017. Following the inauguration of Rumen Radev as President of Bulgaria, Stoyanov was appointed Secretary General of the Presidency by Decree No. 44 of 23 January 2017. He was reappointed to the same post by Decree No. 10 of 22 January 2022 at the start of Radev's second term. In December 2022, he visited Kyiv, where he met the Ukrainian Minister of Defence Oleksii Reznikov to discuss further defence cooperation following the Bulgarian parliament's approval of an agreement on the supply of weapons and ammunition to Ukraine. His term ended on 6 June 2023 with the appointment of the regular Denkov Government, in which he was succeeded by Todor Tagarev. Return to the Presidency and Progressive Bulgaria By presidential decree, Stoyanov was appointed Secretary for Security and Defence to President Radev with effect from 6 June 2023, the same day he left the defence ministry. After Radev resigned from the presidency in January 2026, Stoyanov submitted, together with Galab Donev, the documents registering the coalition "Progressive Bulgaria" with the Central Electoral Commission on 2 March 2026 for the snap parliamentary election of 19 April 2026. The two men were announced as co-chairs of the coalition, which groups the Political Movement Social Democrats, the Social Democratic Party and the Our People Movement around the former president. == Personal life ==

Stoyanov is married and has one child. He speaks English and Russian in addition to his native Bulgarian. == Military ranks ==