On August 10, explosions once again occurred at the warehouses of EMCO, a Bulgarian company, in Belitsa. According to official reports, a fuel tanker caught fire while fuel was being unloaded. The fire then spread to an ammunition warehouse, triggering the BG-ALERT emergency notification system and leading to the evacuation of local residents.

Official Sofia, through Interior Minister Ivan Demerdzhiev, has already issued the familiar assessment: “Preliminary findings indicate that the incident was purely internal and technical, with no signs of external interference.”

For civilians unfamiliar with the specifics, this may sound like a plausible explanation. But from our perspective, the incident represents another déjà vu moment and warrants immediate analysis.

All the details of the incident point toward the signature of the GRU’s 161st Center, military unit 29155, whose activities in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine, including Svatove and Balakliia, have already become well documented.

The facilities of Emilian Gebrev, the owner of EMCO, have been a primary target of Russian military intelligence in Eastern Europe since 2014. EMCO supplies the Ukrainian Armed Forces with a steady flow of scarce Soviet-caliber ammunition. Bulgarian prosecutors have previously established the involvement of GRU agents in a series of explosions at Gebrev-related facilities between 2011 and 2020.

This should also be considered alongside the poisoning of the arms manufacturer himself with Novichok in 2015.

Organizing sabotage by setting fire to auxiliary transport, in this case a fuel tanker, represents an ideal form of “soft power” in the field of sabotage. The high combustion temperature of petroleum products followed by secondary ammunition explosions can destroy traces of explosives, electronic timers, or thermite mixtures.

The incident can then easily be attributed to driver negligence, a spark, or faulty vehicle wiring, allowing the case to remain at the level of a domestic criminal investigation rather than becoming an international scandal.

For the Bulgarian authorities, which have traditionally faced a strong pro-Russian lobby and have sought to avoid escalation, it is considerably easier to acknowledge “industrial negligence” than to officially admit that foreign intelligence operatives may be conducting operations on Bulgarian territory with impunity.

While the Gabrovo District Prosecutor’s Office processes the investigation, those familiar with the broader picture understand that the Kremlin continues its aggressive campaign to disrupt Ukrainian military supply chains directly inside NATO countries.

The explosions in Bulgaria, along with suspicious fires at industrial facilities in Britain, Germany, and Poland, may represent elements of a single strategic concept.

If this was sabotage, the perpetrators exploited a vulnerability in perimeter security during logistics operations and executed the attack with considerable precision.

The next step should be an analysis of satellite imagery and signals-intelligence data from partner countries. Bulgaria is unlikely to publicly acknowledge a Russian connection without conclusive evidence, but the incident should immediately trigger measures to strengthen counterintelligence and security regimes at defense-industrial facilities.

GRU sabotage or negligence? The question is not only what caused the explosions in Bulgaria, but whether they form part of a broader Russian campaign against European defense supply chains.