Burak Bir and Burc Eruygur
08 August 2026•Update: 09 August 2026
An unidentified drone on Saturday exploded less than a mile away from a major pipeline near the Romanian border, according to media reports.
The drone entered Bulgarian airspace from Romania before exploding 1,000 meters (0,6 miles) from a compressor station of the Trans-Balkan gas pipeline, near the former Kardam border checkpoint between the two countries, Bulgarian News Agency BTA reported.
No one was injured and there was no damage to buildings, infrastructure or the surrounding agricultural land, according to the report.
Prime Minister Rumen Radev announced the incident after an extraordinary meeting of the Security Council under the Council of Ministers.
He said the drone had entered from Romanian airspace but had not been detected either in Romania or Bulgaria, adding that there was also no information from NATO's Combined Air Operations Center Torrejon (CAOC TJ) in Spain, which monitors airspace across Southern Europe.
"When flying at low altitude, it is not possible to ensure sufficiently dense radar coverage," Radev said during a news conference.
He added that the "location of the drone explosion was immediately identified" and confirmed that there were no casualties or damage to buildings or infrastructure.
The drone had been carrying a substantial amount of explosive material, enough to produce an explosion that could be heard from a considerable distance, Radev noted.
Commenting on the issue, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi said that Kyiv is in close contact with the Bulgarian side and are currently establishing all the circumstances and technical facts surrounding the incident.
"We are fully open to cooperation with Bulgaria to clarify the details. We can say with certainty that the Ukrainian Defense Forces did not deliberately direct any assets toward Bulgaria," Tykhyi told reporters, according to Ukrainian state news agency Ukrinform.
