Drone crosses undetected through Romanian and Bulgarian airspace, explodes 200 meters from Trans-Balkan gas pipeline station near Kardam
A drone crossed undetected through Romanian and Bulgarian airspace before exploding in a sunflower field near Kardam, 200 meters from Romania's gas pipeline compressor station and 1,000 meters from Bulgaria's. No injuries. Sofia says it was likely a Ukrainian-made Maya decoy dron
A drone crossed into Bulgarian airspace at 8:10 a.m. local time on Saturday and exploded in a sunflower field near the village of Kardam, close to the Romanian border, Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev confirmed. No one was injured and no damage was found to buildings or infrastructure. The explosion site sits about 1,000 meters from Bulgaria's compressor station on the Trans-Balkan gas pipeline, which runs from Turkey to Ukraine, and roughly 200 meters from Romania's own compressor station on the same line. Bulgaria's Defence Ministry says the drone was most likely a Maya decoy type used by Ukraine's armed forces, and that nothing currently points to a deliberate incident. Ukraine has denied targeting Bulgaria and pledged an inquiry. The more significant detail may be procedural rather than physical: neither Romanian nor Bulgarian radar systems detected the aircraft as it crossed their airspace before it exploded. That gap matters because the blast landed within a few hundred meters of gas infrastructure serving both countries, meaning a slower or more deliberate device would likely have gone unnoticed too. Per Reuters.