Romanian military divers detonated two drifting sea drones near the Neptun Deep offshore gas project in the Black Sea on August 11, 2026, raising fresh alarms about the security of critical energy infrastructure in a region already living with the low hum of war next door.
The drones were spotted by a civilian vessel working on the Neptun Deep project, located roughly 90 nautical miles east of Constanța, well inside Romania’s exclusive economic zone. Romania’s Defence Minister, Radu Miruta, confirmed the controlled detonations publicly, and Ukraine separately verified the drones did not belong to its forces.
What happened, and what kind of drones are we talking about
The two devices have been identified as Gerbera-type drones, a Russian-designed maritime UAV. Gerbera drones are built for a range of military tasks: reconnaissance, acting as decoys to draw out air defenses, or direct attack runs on surface targets.
Romanian military divers located the devices and carried out controlled detonations. Ukraine’s confirmation that the drones were not its own effectively narrows the attribution to one plausible source. Russia has not commented publicly on the incident.
