Bulgaria has put six Russian citizens on the European wanted list

Bulgaria has put six Russian citizens on the European wanted list in connection with their possible involvement in explosions and destruction at weapons factories and warehouses from 2011 to 2020.

This was reported by the Prosecutor’s Office of Sofia on January 30. The agency does not name the wanted persons.

According to the Bulgarian Service of Radio Liberty, it is about an explosion at the warehouse of Emelyan Gebrev’s EMCO company in Lovnidol in 2011, and about two explosions at the site of the Vazov machine-building plant in the village of Iganovo in 2015. There was another explosion at the “Arsenal” plant near Myglizh in 2020.

These four explosions were connected by a general investigation, which the prosecutor’s office announced in April 2021, and since then no details about its progress have been disclosed. So far, the investigation has mentioned only the alleged involvement in the organization of the bombings by agents of the Russian military intelligence GRU.

RFE/RL’s Bulgarian service simultaneously notes that according to the message published on Tuesday by the Sofia City Prosecutor’s Office, the suspects were declared wanted not now, but earlier, but this has not been officially announced until now.

Another circumstance, which the prosecutor’s office reported for the first time, is that as part of the investigation, law enforcement agencies are also investigating the possible involvement of Bulgarian citizens in the explosions.

• According to the unofficial information of “Svobodnoy Evropy”, three of the wanted Russians are accused in absentia of an attempt on businessman Gebrev in the spring of 2015, which is being investigated separately. In 2021, a Bulgarian businessman confirmed that his company Emco concluded contracts for the supply of ammunition to Ukraine at the end of 2014. Before that, Gebrev denied the fact of supplying weapons to Kyiv after the start of the armed conflict in Donbass.