In Bulgaria, near the town of Karnobat, explosions occurred at the arms depot of the Emko company, owned by businessman Emilian Gebrev. About it writes the local edition of Sega.
As reported by local residents, several explosions occurred on Sunday night, after which a fire started. According to preliminary information, the building contained materials for the production of defense products. Sega writes that there were no casualties, which was the reason for the explosions, is not yet known.
At the moment, the police are working on the territory of the warehouse. In the near future, a special commission will be formed to inspect the scene. One of the representatives of Emko told reporters that such a fire could not have happened without outside interference.
Previously, similar emergencies have already occurred at the enterprises of the Emco company. So, in July 2022, a fire broke out in the same warehouse — according to preliminary information, it was caused by arson, the investigation of the case is still ongoing. Prior to this, according to Deutsche Welle, the Emco plant and warehouses exploded four times between 2011 and 2020. Gebrev himself suspects that Russian special services were involved in the explosions.
One of the explosions occurred in 2014 at the Gebrev warehouse in the Czech Republic — later local authorities blamed the GRU for the incident. Bellingcat and The Insider reported that GRU officers Alexander Mishkin and Anatoly Chepiga staged an explosion in a warehouse in Vrbetica, Czech Republic, suggesting that weapons destined for Ukraine were stored there. According to the journalists, in a conversation with them, Emko “indirectly confirmed” that it supplied Ukraine with ammunition from December 2014 to February 2015. Gebrev himself claimed that after the start of the military conflict in the Donbass, he did not supply weapons to Ukraine “either directly or indirectly.”
In 2015, Gebrev, his son and the director of the Emko company were hospitalized with symptoms of poisoning. Later, a substance belonging to the Novichok nerve agent class was found in their bodies. The Bulgarian authorities blamed the Russian special services for the incident, as a result of which three Russians were put on the international wanted list. In November 2019, The Insider, Bellingcat and Der Spiegel published an article that revealed that at least eight employees of the Main Directorate of the Russian General Staff were involved in the poisoning of the Gebrevs and the director of their company.