U.S. Deploys F-16s to Bulgaria for Yet Another Black Sea Exercise Eight U.S. F-16 multirole combat aircraft arrived at the Graf Ignatievo Air Base in Bulgaria on July 9 for this year’s iteration of the Thracian Star military exercise. The joint American-Bulgarian air force exercise is being conducted to, according to U.S. Air Forces in Europe and Air Force Africa, “enhance the ability to rapidly deploy to remote locations and provide credible force to assure stability for the region.” The region is the Black Sea, where what the U.S. and NATO consider “temporarily-occupied territory,” Crimea, and the Russian Black Sea Fleet are located. Not far beyond are the South Caucasus, the Donbass and the Middle East (for example, Syria and Iran).