El , the oldest in Romania, experienced a state of maximum alert this Friday. A marine drone exploded during the morning next to one of its docks, near a gas loading terminal of the facilities, located in the Black Sea. The Romanian authorities had already detected the unmanned device a few hours earlier, so they issued two urgent warnings to the population and evacuated a thousand people preventively from the coastal area before the explosion and established a wide security perimeter. The police blocked access to the coastal areas, while some 80 agents and civil protection personnel were deployed in the area. The incident caused no casualties.
The Ministry of Defense initially reported that the unmanned device did not belong to the Romanian army, but was a model used in the , but did not specify which side it belonged to. kyiv later claimed that the drone was its own, but blamed Moscow for it deviating to ultimately hit the waters of the Romanian port.
Residents near the port area were advised to remain in their homes while the area was checked for other possible drones. The prefect of Constanta County, Adrian-Teodor Picoiu, spoke of up to five drones (although the Ministry of Defense later reduced the figure to four). According to their data, “one exploded in the port of Constanta, another on the Ukrainian side [del mar Negro] and three other drones” were “being searched by two helicopters to avoid problems.”
Ukraine accused Russia and its electronic warfare of being behind the event. “During the execution of missions in the operational area of the Black Sea, one of the unmanned maritime vessels of the Naval Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine lost control under the influence of the enemy’s electronic means of warfare and arrived near the Romanian coast,” the kyiv authorities explained in a Facebook post, noting that they offered their Romanian counterparts “the necessary information to avoid possible losses of the civilian population.”
However, the Romanian Defense Minister, Radu Miruta, reproached kyiv for delaying in announcing that it had lost control of four marine drones – the Ukrainian statement focuses on one. Bucharest was aware of the first at six in the morning and kyiv informed them at 10:00.
“The marine drone (…) detonated itself around 10:30 a.m. [una hora menos en la España peninsular] without causing any casualties. “The area was already secured and isolated by the forces of the Romanian Intelligence Service, the Coast Guard and the Ministry of National Defense,” the ministry said. The device, it added, had nothing to do with military exercises recently organized in .
According to Commander Mateiu Sandu, the drone was of the Magura V5 type (Unmanned Robotic Device of the Autonomous Maritime Guard), similar to those used by the Ukrainian Defense Intelligence Service (HUR). This same media outlet assured that four others with explosives were found in the coastal area. The case is now being investigated by the Prosecutor’s Office attached to the Court of Appeal of Constanta.
For his part, Raed Arafat, head of the Department of Emergency Situations, stated that there were possibly other drones. “The code red has been activated, eight fire trucks and ten ambulances have been mobilized, and orders have been given to monitor the coast by emergency service helicopter and a Black Hawk aircraft,” he explained. Maritime Rescue notified at six in the morning that it had identified a drone, at which time the area was isolated.
The Emergency Service ordered evacuation measures for the population living one kilometer from the coast in the provinces of Constanta and Tulcea, which is equivalent to the entire Romanian coastline. “In the entire coastal area, wherever there is a coast, there is a risk that there is a drone. Until we look, we are not sure if there is one or not,” Arafat explained.
“This is the second significant security incident this week on the Romanian coast, after the discovery of a sea mine between the towns of Vama Veche and 2 Mai,” stressed the President of Romania, in a message published on the social network Facebook, while attending the EU-Western Balkans Summit in Montenegro.
The incident is also reminiscent of that in Galati, when a Russian drone hit the tenth floor of a residential block located in the center of this city of 250,000 inhabitants. The Kremlin denied it was its own.
“With a military conflict on the border, it is obvious that the security environment we find ourselves in is delicate, so we will maintain a high level of vigilance,” Dan added. “These particularly serious situations are the direct consequences of the war of aggression unleashed by Russia against Ukraine.” The investigation continues its process.
“Our response must be appropriate to the urgency. Europe is investing heavily in anti-drone capabilities, air defense and early warning systems. SAFE [un instrumento financiero para impulsar la industria militar] will help build a stronger Romania and a stronger Europe,” reacted the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, in a message published on the social network X.
A few hours after learning of the incident, the Russian Embassy in Bucharest stated that these were “Ukrainian unmanned maritime vehicles used by the kyiv regime to commit terrorist acts against civilian ships and create threats to the safety of navigation in the Black Sea.”
The blockade of Ukrainian grain and merchandise ports has made Constanta a key alternative. Located in the Black Sea, however, its surroundings are being affected by the actions of the Ukrainian security forces against Russian ships that are trying to avoid Western sanctions or that transport goods from areas occupied by the Kremlin.
