Bulgaria probes weapons site fire as sabotage amid Russian escalation fears

An ammunition warehouse in central Bulgaria caught fire overnight, triggering a series of explosions that lit up the darkness near the village of Gorni Varpishta, about 170 kilometers east of Sofia. No one was hurt. By morning, the question was not whether the fire had happened, but who had set it.

Interior Minister Ivan Demerdzhiev told reporters that authorities were investigating the blaze and explicitly stated they were not ruling out what he called "outside interference." The facility belonged to EMCO, a private defence company whose weapons have been flowing to Ukrainian forces fighting the Russian invasion. EMCO's own statement was more direct: the company said the fire was sabotage and that human error had been "completely ruled out." The firm did not name a suspect, but the implication hung in the air.

This was not EMCO's first brush with catastrophe. Just last month, another of the company's ammunition warehouses in the same region had caught fire and exploded. The pattern was becoming difficult to ignore. EMCO noted in a statement that the facility destroyed this time had been sitting unused for months and had been inspected just three weeks earlier, when inspectors confirmed full compliance with all safety regulations. The company then did something unusual: it listed a series of similar incidents at Bulgarian defence firms stretching back to 2011, framing each one as part of what it called "a series of acts of sabotage against the Bulgarian defence industry." EMCO called on Bulgaria, as both an EU and NATO member state, to join a collective effort to prevent and neutralize such attacks.

The company's owner is Emilian Gebrev, a Bulgarian arms dealer with a history that reads like a thriller. In 2015, Gebrev, his son, and another company employee were poisoned in what Bulgarian prosecutors say was an attempt on their lives. Three Russian nationals were later charged in absentia for attempted murder in connection with that incident. The poisoning was never prosecuted to conclusion, but the message was clear: someone wanted Gebrev dead or incapacitated.

Bulgaria's role in arming Ukraine has made it a focal point in Europe's shadow war. The country is a major weapons supplier to Ukrainian forces, though the government in Sofia has recently stopped state-owned arms transfers. Private companies like EMCO, however, continue to send weapons across the border. That distinction matters: while Bulgaria's official position has shifted toward caution, its defence industry remains a lifeline for Ukraine's war effort.

The fires in Bulgaria are not isolated. Russia appears to have launched or intensified a sabotage campaign across NATO and EU territory. Last week, Germany blamed Russia for a drone attack on Leipzig airport in August—a claim Moscow dismissed as "absurd." From Italy to Estonia, suspicious fires have erupted at defence facilities, with affected countries pointing fingers at Moscow. The pattern suggests either a coordinated campaign or a series of copycat incidents, each one raising the stakes for countries trying to support Ukraine while remaining on NATO's eastern flank.

Bulgaria finds itself in a precarious position. It is close enough to Russia to be vulnerable, committed enough to NATO to be a target, and deeply enough involved in Ukraine's defence to be worth attacking. The fire at Gorni Varpishta is the latest evidence that this vulnerability is not theoretical. Whether authorities can prove who set it remains an open question, but the message—if it was indeed sabotage—is unmistakable: the war in Ukraine is reaching into the territories of its supporters.