The drone that crashed into a sunflower field in Bulgaria early Saturday was most likely a model commonly used by Ukraine, the Bulgarian defense ministry said.
“Initial analysis of the wreckage shows that it is most likely a Maya decoy drone. This type of drone is widely used by the Ukrainian armed forces,” the ministry said in an emailed statement. “At the moment, there is no reason to believe that the incident was intentional.”
Bulgaria’s foreign minister, Velislava Petrova-Chamova, on Saturday summoned the Ukrainian ambassador, AFP reported, citing her office. The meeting will take place on Monday.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry said it was in close contact with the Bulgarian side to clarify the circumstances. “We can say for sure that the Ukrainian Defense Forces did not intentionally direct any means towards Bulgaria,” the ministry said in a statement.
The UAV entered Bulgarian airspace from Romania early on Saturday and crashed about 100 meters (328 feet) over the European Union and NATO member nations’ shared border in far northeast Bulgaria, Prime Minister Rumen Radev said at a press conference.
The drone crashed near a compressor station on the Trans Balkan gas pipeline that links Turkey to Ukraine, near the former border crossing at Kardam, Radev said. It had gone undetected by Bulgarian and Romanian radar as well as by NATO’s combined air operations center. No casualties or damage to buildings were reported.
Bulgarian border police and defense ministry personnel were deployed and the area secured and isolated. Radev said the UAV had carried “a solid amount of explosives.”
Romania’s defense ministry said its radar systems had detected no aerial vehicle crossing Romanian airspace into Bulgaria.
The incident is the latest in which a drone possibly deployed in the Russia-Ukraine conflict has flown into or landed in a nearby country, including Poland, Romania and Latvia. All of those nations, unlike Bulgaria, share a border with either Ukraine or Russia.
Written by: Slav Okov — With assistance from Irina Vilcu @Bloomberg
The post “Bulgaria Says Crashed Drone Near Romania Likely Ukraine’s” first appeared on Bloomberg