Overview
- An explosion overnight on Sept. 12, 2026 set off a fire at a munitions storage site near Tsareva Livada that was visible on local video and spread “from warehouse to warehouse,” with no reported injuries.
- The strike is the second blaze at an EMCO-run facility in weeks, following an Aug. 10 fire and series of explosions that destroyed a separate EMCO storage building near Belitsa.
- Bulgarian authorities have opened an investigation into the cause and have not publicly tied this incident to foreign actors, leaving official attribution unsettled.
- Bulgarian prosecutors previously linked a string of depot blasts and a 2015 poisoning attempt on EMCO owner Emilian Gebrev to Russian operatives and issued 2024 arrest warrants for six Russian nationals over earlier depot destructions.
- The new fire adds to a pattern of unexplained attacks on defence-related sites in Europe this year and has raised fresh concerns about storage safety, local risk, and the security of munitions shipments to countries such as Ukraine and Georgia.