SOFIA, Sept 18 (Portal) – Bulgaria’s Defense Ministry said on Monday it had dispatched a special unit to inspect and deactivate a drone carrying explosives that landed in the Black Sea city of Tyulenovo on Sunday evening.
After the inspection, the team from NATO member Bulgaria will decide how to dispose of it, the ministry said in a statement, adding that the team was sent at the request of the regional government.
“We can safely assume that it (the drone) is related to the war that Russia started against Ukraine,” Defense Minister Todor Tagarev told reporters.
“This war inevitably involves increasing risks to our security,” he added.
Tagarev did not provide further details about where the drone came from or how it got to Bulgaria.
[1/2]In this handout image released on September 18, 2023, a drone carrying explosives is seen on the Black Sea coast near the village of Tyulenovo, Bulgaria. Bulgarian Ministry of Defense/Handout via Portal acquires license rights
The tourist town of Tyulenovo is 70 kilometers (43 miles) south of the Romanian border and across the Black Sea from Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula that was forcibly annexed by Russia in 2014 and is now a regular target of Ukrainian drone strikes.
Police cordoned off the area on Sunday evening and restricted public access to the terraces of local restaurants, Marian Zhechev, mayor of the municipality of Shabla, which includes Tyulenovo, told Nova TV.
He said the drone was found on rocks next to moored boats in Tyulenovo and described it as an “aircraft with standard ammunition.”
It was unclear whether the drone fell from the air or was washed ashore by ocean currents.
The website Nova.bg quoted witnesses as saying the drone was between 3 and 3.5 meters long and had a container of explosives attached to it.
Last week, fragments of a suspected drone were found in Romania after a new Russian attack on Ukraine’s Danube ports across the border.
Reporting by Stoyan Nenov in Sofia and Ivana Secularac in Belgrade; Edited by Toby Chopra and Gareth Jones
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