An unidentified drone flew into Bulgaria from Romania on the morning of August 8 and exploded near the Trans-Balkan gas pipeline, Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev said. The incident occurred at about 8:10 a.m. local time.
The drone fell and detonated in a sunflower field about 100 meters from the border, near the former Kardam border crossing. The blast occurred 200 meters from a Romanian compressor station and about a kilometer from the Bulgarian one. No injuries, fire, or infrastructure damage were reported, and traffic through the crossing continued uninterrupted, the Dobrich regional administration confirmed.
Bulgarian Defense Minister Dimitar Stoyanov said the device was not a hobbyist drone but a large aircraft carrying a significant amount of explosives. Neither Bulgarian nor Romanian radars detected the drone, and no warning came from NATO's Joint Air Operations Centre in Spain, local media reported.
Romanian border guards only registered the drone's noise, and soon a Bulgarian patrol near the town of General Toshevo heard a loud explosion. Radev attributed the detection failure to the drone's small size, low flight altitude, and a years-long delay in procuring modern three-dimensional radars. Military specialists are examining the wreckage; the drone's model and origin have not yet been determined.
Following the incident, Bulgaria decided to redeploy drone detection and suppression equipment from the Turkish border to the Romanian border and to strengthen protection of strategic facilities. The issue is expected to be raised at a North Atlantic Council meeting early next week.
Bulgarian forces had already increased surveillance of this border section on July 31, after Romania shot down three drones in three days. At least one was identified as a Shahed-type drone used by the Russian military for strikes on Ukraine. According to Romanian authorities, Russian drones have violated the country's airspace 33 times since the start of the full-scale war. After the July incidents, Bucharest summoned the Russian ambassador and later expelled one diplomat.
The gas infrastructure near Kardam connects the networks of Bulgaria and Romania. It is part of the Vertical Gas Corridor, through which fuel flows from Greece via Bulgaria, Romania, and Moldova to Ukraine. The route is being expanded to supply non-Russian gas.