A group of soldiers with the 173rd Airborne Brigade accidentally seized a civilian-occupied business in Bulgaria during a training exercise, U.S. Army officials confirmed Tuesday.
On May 11, the paratroopers conducted an exercise simulating seizing an airfield in Cheshnegirovo, Bulgaria, according to the U.S. Army Europe branch. The exercise required soldiers to enter and clear multiple empty structures on the airfield. When the team arrived at a Bulgarian engineering plant adjacent to the airfield, they apparently thought it was part of the training area.
The owner of the factory reportedly filed a lawsuit following the training exercise, according to Bulgarian journalist Dilyana Gaytandzhieva, who also posted security footage from the raid on her Twitter account.
On Friday, the U.S. Embassy in Bulgaria released a press statement apologizing for the incident, admitting the building was a place where “Bulgarian civilians [were] operating a private business. No weapons were fired at any time during this interaction.”
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“We always learn from these exercises and are fully investigating the cause of this mistake,” the statement read.
US special forces mistakenly storm a factory producing machinery for olive oil during #NATO drills in #Bulgaria. The owner has filed a law suit pic.twitter.com/3NRM558Q7g
— Dilyana Gaytandzhieva (@dgaytandzhieva) May 30, 2021
The building was reportedly a factory used to make equipment to produce olive oil. Security footage from inside the factory showed one worker sitting in a chair as soldiers walked past him, according to images obtained by the Daily Mail.
Bulgarian President Rumen Radev called the accident “inadmissible,” claiming the soldiers put the lives of Bulgarian citizens at risk due to “military formations.”
The Army added it would “implement rigorous procedures to clearly define our training areas and prevent this type of incident in the future.”
The paratroopers were conducting assault maneuvers as part of Exercise Swift Response between May 10 and May 14, which also took place across parts of Estonia and Romania. The exercise is just one of many activities conducted by the U.S. Army across Europe.
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The Washington Examiner contacted U.S. Army Europe and Radev’s office but did not immediately receive a response.
