Russian drone found off Poland’s coast carried explosive warhead, prosecutor says

The Russian drone found Monday off Poland’s northwestern coast was carrying a warhead with a detonator, prosecutors handling the case announced Wednesday.

On Monday, the Polish military located and retrieved a drone ⁠from the Baltic Sea near the beach in Rusinowo, close ​to Jarosławiec. Authorities neutralized the Russian Gerbera 2 drone on the beach and then moved it for further examination.

The aircraft contained a “high-explosive fragmentation warhead fitted with a fuze,” Colonel Bartosz Okoniewski, deputy regional prosecutor for military affairs in Poznań, said in a televised briefing Wednesday.

Investigators have not officially established where or when the drone was launched, where it entered the sea or what mission it was carrying out.

According to the Operational Command’s spokesperson, Lt Col Jacek Goryszewski, the most likely explanation is that the drone drifted from international waters to Poland’s territorial waters.

The incident comes amid mounting tensions between Russia and European countries. On Tuesday, NATO jets shot down a drone that entered Lithuanian airspace, and a Russian frigate fired flares at a Danish military helicopter.

Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned Sunday that “the coming weeks and months will be a period of very intense Russian activity,” adding that “the escalation of the Russian Federation’s actions is becoming a fact, and examples of this are getting closer and closer to our border.”