Russia has distanced itself from a naval drone explosion at the port of Constanța, southeastern Romania, attributing the incident to Ukrainian unmanned surface vehicles.
The Russian Embassy in Bucharest has said the craft were Ukrainian and accused Kyiv of using such devices to attack civilian shipping.
“The Russian Embassy in Romania informs the Romanian public that these are Ukrainian unmanned surface vehicles used by the Kyiv regime to carry out terrorist attacks against civilian vessels and threaten navigation in the Black Sea,” the embassy said.
It described the account given by Romania as “deliberately incomplete”. The embassy added that any attempt to link the drones to Russia, directly or indirectly, and to hold it responsible “lacked any foundation”.
Romania’s Ministry of National Defence has said the device, which detonated and caused material damage, was “of the type used in the war in Ukraine”. The ministry said the drone did not belong to the Romanian armed forces and had not taken part in recent exercises.
The unmanned vessel was found in the civilian section of the port, close to the headquarters of Romania’s maritime rescue agency, and self-detonated at about 10.30am. The area had already been secured and isolated by the Romanian Intelligence Service, the Coast Guard and the Ministry of National Defence, and the object was being assessed and made safe at the time, the ministry said. The detonation left no casualties.
Residents were sent an emergency alert and told to move away from the Black Sea coast as a precaution.
Romanian President Nicușor Dan praised the speed with which security forces had evacuated and secured the area “preventively before the explosion”. He said such episodes were “a direct consequence of the war of aggression unleashed by Russia against Ukraine”.
Dan described the blast as the second significant security incident on Romania’s Black Sea coast in a matter of days. It followed the discovery of a naval mine near the resorts of Vama Veche and 2 Mai, and came after a Russian-made drone crashed into a residential building in Galați, eastern Romania, on May 29, injuring two people.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa described the Constanța incident in similar terms, calling it “a direct consequence of Russia’s war against Ukraine”.
