Fire at the warehouse of the EMCO arms plant in Bulgaria

Currently, the fire is spreading to the plant's warehouse area. The fire is spreading from warehouse to warehouse, Kristina Sidorova, governor of the Gabrovo region, told reporters.

Local media, citing a representative of the EMCO arms company, reported that the fire broke out in a facility managed by this company, and in August there was an explosion in another plant belonging to this company.

The parliamentarian draws attention to the government's reaction and the poisoning attempt

Bozhidar Bozhanov, former minister of e-government, commented on the explosions on social media. "There are still fires in ammunition warehouses in Bulgaria. There are too many cases, and they are aimed against the EMKO company, whose owner was a victim of an attempt on his life by the GRU," he said. He assessed that the Bulgarian services do not respond to these reports, and the authorities "don't have the courage to mention Russia."

“How many more fires, explosions and attempted murders must occur in the EU and in Bulgaria before the authorities respond?” – asks the parliamentarian.

EMCO under the microscope of investigators and spies

EMCO is headed by Bulgarian arms dealer Emilian Gebrew. In 2015, he, his son and his business partner became victims of an attempted Novichok poisoning. The investigation into this case was initiated in the summer of 2015, then discontinued and resumed three years later.

In February 2020, the prosecutor's office indicted three Russian citizens. Investigators then announced that they had counterfeit documents that the Russians used to enter Bulgaria. According to the prosecutor's office, these were alleged officers of the Russian military intelligence service GRU.

The investigative portal Bellincat presented materials that prove that GRU agents were in Bulgaria when the poisoning attempt took place.

According to the Bulgarian prosecutor's office, facilities belonging to Gebrev have been the target of attacks by Russian agents in the past. Already in 2024, Bulgaria issued an arrest warrant for six Russian citizens accused of participating in the destruction of EMCO warehouses, where ammunition intended for export to Ukraine and Georgia was stored in 2011–2020. Prosecutors then said there were reasonable grounds to believe there was a connection between the explosions in Bulgaria, the attempted poisoning of Gebrev in 2015 and the explosions at Czech ammunition depots in 2014. Moscow rejected these allegations.

The British think tank International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) published a database in 2025 containing attacks on arms companies attributed to Russia. The report accompanying the database emphasized that Russia seeks, through acts of sabotage and espionage, to destabilize the governments of European countries, as well as to weaken their public support for Ukraine and the ability of NATO and the European Union to jointly respond to Russian aggression.