Bulgaria investigates fire at weapons site that owner calls sabotage
Officials are not ruling out "outside interference", while the company says the blaze at its site was sabotage.
Bulgaria is investigating an overnight fire at an ammunition storage site operated by a private defence company, after the owner described the incident as sabotage.
Interior Minister Ivan Demerdzhiev said authorities "are not ruling out outside interference" in the blaze in central Bulgaria. No-one was injured, though the fire set off a series of explosions.
EMCO, whose weapons are used by Ukraine against invading Russian forces, said the fire at its site was sabotage and that human error was "completely ruled out". The company did not say who it believed was responsible.
The incident comes after last month's fire and blasts at another EMCO ammunition warehouse in the same area.
In a statement, EMCO said the storage facility that burned this time - near the central village of Gorni Varpishta, about 170km (106 miles) east of the capital Sofia - had not been used for months and had been inspected just 20 days ago, when full compliance with all regulations was confirmed.
The company pointed to several similar incidents at Bulgarian defence firms since 2011, saying the latest was "no exception to the series of acts of sabotage against the Bulgarian defence industry".
"As the EU and Nato member state most severely affected by such actions, Bulgaria must join the collective effort to prevent and neutralise these attacks," EMCO said.
The firm is led by Bulgarian arms dealer Emilian Gebrev, whom Bulgarian prosecutors allege has already been targeted by Russian agents.
That includes a poisoning attempt in 2015 involving Gebrev, his son and another company employee - three Russian nationals were later charged in absentia with attempted murder.
Bulgaria is a key weapons supplier to Ukraine as it continues to repel a full-scale Russian invasion launched in 2022.
And while Sofia has recently stopped state-owned arms supplies to Ukraine, Bulgarian private defence companies continue to make such transfers.
Russia appears to have stepped up its sabotage campaign across Europe recently.
Last week, Germany said Russia was behind August's drone attack at Leipzig's airport - a claim Moscow dismissed as "absurd".
There have also been several suspicious fires at defence facilities from Italy to Estonia, with some of the affected countries blaming Russia.