Drone enters Bulgaria, explodes near pipeline at Romanian border

Sofia (Bulgaria) (AFP) – A drone that entered Bulgaria on Saturday exploded near the Romanian border and the Trans-Balkan gas pipeline there, which links Turkey to Ukraine, Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev announced.

While Radev did not specify where the drone, which caused no casualties, came from, he said the amount of explosives it was carrying was "significant".

"The drone exploded in the immediate vicinity of the Kardam border-crossing with Romania," near the Black Sea in the country's northeast, "1,000 metres from the Trans-Balkan gas pipeline's compressor station," he said in a video released by the government on social media.

After analysing the debris from the crash, Bulgaria's defence ministry said that the drone was of a type "widely used by the Ukrainian military".

It said that, "currently, nothing suggests that this was a deliberate incident".

The drone eventually crashed into a sunflower field, Radev said.

The sound of the drone was recorded by border police in Romania, and then "a loud explosion accompanied by black smoke" was spotted by a Bulgarian border police patrol, Radev added, speaking after an extraordinary meeting of his cabinet's security council.

"One thing is certain: the drone was carrying a significant amount of explosives, given that it could be heard from a distance and produced such black smoke," he said.

"I hope we will soon discover what type it is," Radev said, adding that it was not a "hobby drone" but a "larger drone".

He noted that the drone had not been detected by either of the two neighbouring countries.

"As you know, identifying and neutralising these drones poses a major challenge," he added.

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