Ukraine has denied deliberately targeting Bulgaria after a drone entered the country's airspace on Saturday and exploded near an international gas pipeline shortly after crossing the border from Romania. No casualties or damage were reported.
Bulgaria's Defense Ministry said there were indications the drone was the type used by Ukrainian armed forces and that the incident was likely accidental. Bulgaria and Romania are both members of NATO and the European Union.
Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi said the Ukrainian military was investigating the incident but had not deliberately targeted Bulgaria. He said Ukraine and Bulgaria were in "close contact" to establish what happened.
Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev said the drone exploded shortly after 5 a.m., about 100 meters inside Bulgarian territory. It was not detected or identified while flying through either Romanian or Bulgarian airspace.
Radev said the drone exploded about 200 meters from a Romanian compressor station and approximately 1 kilometer from Bulgaria's compressor station on the Trans-Balkan gas pipeline.
"We will continue to monitor the situation and strengthen surveillance. Following this incident, we will also redeploy border police anti-drone detection and countermeasure capabilities from the border with Turkey to the border with Romania," Radev said.
Bulgaria's Defense Minister Atanas Stoyanov said the drone appeared to have carried a significant amount of explosives, based on the strength of the blast and the column of black smoke. He added that such drones can be difficult to detect because of their small size and low flight altitude.
Drones entering NATO airspace have become more common since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In June, two NATO fighter jets shot down a drone that entered Latvian airspace, while Estonia and Lithuania also reported drones crashing in their territories.
Moldova and Romania, which border Ukraine, have reported separate incidents involving drones entering or crashing within their territory. Officials have attributed some of the inadvertent incursions to Russian electronic warfare.
