The explosion reportedly occurred around 8:10 a.m. Romanian border police detected the sound of the drone, and Bulgarian border guards near General Toshevo heard a powerful explosion. The crash site was quickly cordoned off, with border police, National Police and Defense Ministry units working to determine the type of drone involved.
Radev stressed that no casualties or damage to buildings or infrastructure had been recorded. According to preliminary information from border guards, the drone fell in a sunflower field, and the explosion was accompanied by thick black smoke, which Radev said indicated a significant amount of explosives on board.
Radev specified that the drone exploded approximately 200 meters (about 650 feet) from a Romanian compressor station and roughly one kilometer (0.6 miles) from a Bulgarian compressor station on the Trans-Balkan gas pipeline.
Following an emergency government meeting, the president reiterated that there were no casualties or building damage, and that the area around the explosion site had been cordoned off.
"This is not a toy drone — it's a larger device," Radev said, adding that the drone was not detected by either Bulgarian or Romanian airspace surveillance systems.
Radev attributed the failure to detect the drone to technical limitations, saying small, low-flying drones are difficult to detect with existing radar coverage. He said Bulgaria's Defense Ministry has been waiting for years for the delivery of modern digital 3D radar systems, and the process remains incomplete.
Radev noted that two weeks earlier, Romania shot down three Shahed-type drones over its territory, after which Bulgaria strengthened radar surveillance in the border region. Following the latest incident, the country will deploy additional border police personnel and equipment to detect and counter drones along its entire border, from Turkiye to Romania.
Broader regional pattern
Separately on Aug. 8, suspicious drone flights were recorded over a German military (Bundeswehr) facility in Mechernich that services Patriot air defense systems.
Meanwhile, Lithuanian military intelligence has warned that Russia is considering using Ukrainian-made drones to strike critical infrastructure in the Baltic region in an attempt to conceal its own involvement.
Romania has recorded repeated airspace violations by drones since July. On July 26, an F-16 fighter jet shot down a drone over the country's territorial waters near Sulina-Chilia. On July 25, a Romanian F-16 pilot intercepted and shot down a drone 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) west of the city of Sfântu Gheorghe.
On July 24, an F-16 fighter jet shot down an unidentified drone later identified as a Russian Shahed.