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A new runway and army facilities, as well as the construction of shops, kindergartens and apartments await the expansion of the Romanian Mihail Kogalniceanu base near the Black Sea port of Constanta, where NATO soldiers are deployed. The aim of the project is to almost double the capacity of the base, which now holds five thousand soldiers, and make it the largest facility of its kind in Europe.
Work on the construction of the new facility has already begun, and is expected to be completed in 2040. The new military complex is to be spread over an area of 2,800 hectares and to be inhabited by approximately ten thousand NATO soldiers and their families. The project will cost the Romanian government 2.5 billion euros (63 billion crowns), according to portal Euractiv Ministry of Defense of the country.
“They will build apartments for individual soldiers or families. There will be block housing, individual houses, crèches, kindergartens, schools, pharmacies, everything necessary,” base commander Nicolae Cretu told the Balkan Insight server. Hospitals and shops are also in the plans.
In addition to civilian structures, military facilities will also be modernized. The existing airport runway will be expanded twice, while NATO plans to build at least one more, the schematic shows map the Romanian editorial office of the Euronews server. Cretu told Romanian state radio that a connection between the two existing runways, taxiways for aircraft and anti-aircraft defense systems is also planned. According to him, work on access roads and distribution networks had already begun.
At the moment, approximately five thousand members of the armed forces are deployed at the air base, mostly American soldiers, but also from other countries of the North Atlantic Alliance. Therefore, Mihail Kogalniceanu, even after doubling the capacity, will probably not exceed the number of members of the armed forces who are at the American air base Ramstein in Germany.
According to publicly available sources, there are more than 16,000 American soldiers alone – along with civilians and employees hired by the US military. The area of Ramstein is 1400 hectares.
The Mihail Kogalniceanu base is located less than 100 kilometers as the crow flies from the border with Ukraine, which has been facing Russian military aggression for more than two years. Romania has invested heavily in defense in recent years, according to Balkan Insight. For this year, the army will have a budget of over 20 billion euros (792 billion crowns), which is 45 percent more than in 2023. The Balkan country wants to invest mainly in the purchase of modern equipment.
Since the expansion of the military base, it promises stronger security guarantees, according to Euractiv, the Romanian Ministry of Defense.
The Mihail Kogalniceanu base will become “the most important permanent NATO military structure in the immediate vicinity of the conflict in Ukraine,” said geopolitical expert Dorin Popescu. It will also strengthen NATO’s eastern flank, including in the Black Sea region, part of which is occupied by the Russian Navy.
