Explosives-laden Ukrainian drone found off Turkish coast – media (VIDEO)

A Ukrainian-made suicide drone carrying 300 kilograms of explosives was found drifting off the Black Sea coast near Türkiye’s port city of Trabzon on Monday night, Haberturk outlet has reported.

Local fishermen caught the “object believed to be of foreign origin” in their nets and hauled it to port, the Trabzon Governor’s Office said in a statement on Tuesday.

Security measures were taken, and elite Turkish Underwater Defense (SAS) diving teams, along with other security services, were called in, it said. The office also warned citizens not to interact with these types of objects if they come across them.

The authorities determined the weapon to be a Ukrainian Magura V5 series kamikaze naval drone, Haberturk wrote on Tuesday.

Halil Ibrahim Bozok, a crew member of the trawler, said they were fishing for anchovies when they picked up the drone’s signature on their radar.

“We detected it on radar 800 meters away. We thought it was a fiberglass boat, so we didn’t think it was full of explosives. We hooked it up and took it aboard,” he said in a comment cited by Haberturk.

“It contained 300 kilograms of explosives,” the fisherman said, adding that the crew hung the vessel from their boat, notified the coast guard, and hauled it back to shore.

This isn’t the first time Ukrainian weapons have been discovered in the Black Sea this close to Türkiye. Last December, a sea mine was discovered floating 50km east of the Bosporus Strait, a key global trade corridor.

Stray mines have been discovered in the region numerous times since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022.

You can share this story on social media:

Follow RT on