Bulgaria investigates fire at weapons site that owner calls sabotage

What the report says

Bulgaria is investigating an overnight fire at an ammunition storage site operated by private defence company EMCO, with officials saying they are not ruling out outside interference. The blaze, which broke out near the central village of Gorni Varpishta, triggered a series of explosions. No injuries were reported, according to the BBC World News report.

EMCO said the incident was sabotage and said human error had been completely ruled out, though it did not identify any possible culprit. The company added that the facility had not been used for months and had been inspected only 20 days earlier, with full compliance said to have been confirmed. EMCO also linked the fire to what it described as a wider pattern of sabotage against Bulgaria’s defence industry.

The company is run by arms dealer Emilian Gebrev, whom Bulgarian prosecutors have said was previously targeted by Russian agents in a 2015 poisoning case involving Gebrev, his son and another employee. The site fire follows a similar incident at another EMCO warehouse in the same area last month.

The episode matters because Bulgaria is a significant supplier of weapons to Ukraine, even as Moscow’s full-scale invasion continues. The report also places the fire in a broader European context of suspected sabotage at defence-related sites, with some governments blaming Russia and Moscow denying responsibility.