Defense Minister Dimitar Stoyanov @BNT
Defense Minister Dimitar Stoyanov said Bulgaria is waiting for Ukraine to confirm whether a Ukrainian decoy drone that exploded near the Kardam border crossing on Saturday took off from Ukrainian territory, as investigators have so far been unable to recover flight coordinates from the device’s GPS module.
The drone, identified in a preliminary assessment as a Ukrainian-made Maya decoy, entered Bulgarian territory from the direction of Romania and exploded about 100 meters inside the Bulgarian border. The incident occurred near the village of Yovkovo in the General Toshevo municipality, close to a Romanian compressor station and about 1 kilometer from the Bulgarian compressor station of the Trans-Balkan gas pipeline.
Stoyanov said the drone’s GPS module has been recovered, but it does not contain information that would reveal its flight path. The device had a wooden structure, while its engine was reportedly the only metal component, making it particularly difficult for conventional radar systems to detect.
“The GPS module has been discovered, it is not protected in any way. They cannot find the coordinates of where the drone passed through the GPS module,” Stoyanov told BNT.
