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Mystery Surrounds Drone Explosion in Port of Constanta

Ukraine drone
Via Romanian social media

Published Jun 7, 2026 10:55 PM by The Maritime Executive

On Friday, a Ukrainian naval drone was discovered in the Romanian port of Constanta, entangled in a pollution-control boom. The device later detonated, sending a cloud of debris high into the air over the port. Its origins and the means by which it found its way into the inner port remain a mystery. 

The drone boat was located at a pier used by search and rescue vessels, opposite a liquid bulk terminal and a grain terminal in the northern half of the port. 

The device had the appearance of a Ukrainian Sea Baby or Sargan-3000 series drone, with an aft platform for a camera, a Starlink terminal mounted forward and an array of antennas on each side of the deck. A video taken by a bystander on the SAR agency's pier showed the drone entangled in a pollution containment boom that is usually stored in the gap between the marginal wharf and the shoreline.

The site is located about three nautical miles inside the harbor entrance, and would require passing through a channel of about 800 feet in width, then into a gap behind the pier measuring just 60 feet wide. Romanian authorities said that the vessel's communications were jammed at sea, implying that it entered the port and drifted into its final location by accident. Ukrainian sources notified their Romanian counterparts in advance that the boat's controls had been lost, according to Romanian President Nicusor Dan.

On learning of the drone's discovery, Romanian authorities evacuated the area, preventing any casualties from the self-destruct blast. No port infrastructure sustained significant damage from the explosion, according to government sources; at least one bystander video appears to show damage to a nearby storage shed. 

"Responsibility for such incidents lies with Russia as the country that initiated the aggression. Ukraine, on the other hand, has become a victim of this aggression and is defending itself," Dan said in a statement. "For cases such as the one that occurred in the port of Constanta, there are special protocols in place with clearly defined actions for each agency. I want to emphasize that in this situation, all prescribed procedures were followed."

Ukraine holds sea control over most of the Black Sea using its expanding arsenal of drone boats, and has damaged or destroyed Russian warships in attacks as far away as Novorossiysk and the Kerch Strait. With the gradual diminishment of Russian air defenses, Ukraine has begun using aerial drone strikes to reach farther-flung corners of the region: it hit five Turkish coastal bulkers in the Sea of Azov on Friday, causing extensive damage and killing five seafarers. The bulkers were involved in the "stolen grain" trade extracting wheat from Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, according to Kyiv.

The drone strike campaign has extended ever further into Russian air space, and Ukraine's forces have reached as far north as St. Petersburg to attack naval targets. After hitting a fuel pier and a corvette in the city's harbor last week, Ukrainian drones returned Friday to destroy a section of the 15th Naval Arsenal at Bolshaya Izhora, south of Kronstadt. Ukraine's general staff confirmed the attack and said that it had hit a storage site for missiles and ammunition.