The Russian drone Polish troops pulled from the Baltic Sea off Rusinowo on Monday was armed. Military prosecutors said Wednesday it carried a live high-explosive fragmentation warhead with a fuze, which sappers separated from the airframe and destroyed on the beach Tuesday evening.
Prosecutors have preliminarily identified the aircraft as a Russian-made Gerbera 2. When DroneXL first reported the recovery on Tuesday, the working assumption was a plywood decoy of the kind Russia flies to drain air defenses. This one came loaded, and Polish investigators still have not established where it launched or what it was sent to do.
Polish Prosecutors Confirm the Gerbera 2 Was Armed
Col. Bartosz Okoniewski, deputy regional prosecutor for military affairs in Poznań, said the drone was armed. He described a “high-explosive fragmentation warhead fitted with a fuze,” Politico reports. Sappers split it from the airframe, and the warhead was destroyed on the beach Tuesday evening.
A military prosecutor from Szczecin-Niebuszewo led the on-site work alongside military counterintelligence, military and police sappers, the gendarmerie and firefighters, according to United24. The stripped airframe went to a military facility for lab tests. The case runs under a preliminary charge of causing an explosion that endangers many lives or valuable property, and investigators are also looking at an aircraft crossing the border without permission.
Our Tuesday roundup noted that most Gerberas fly empty. This one did not. It is the same airframe we profiled last September, when roughly 20 Russian drones crossed into Poland and Warsaw invoked Article 4.
Polish Officials Offer Three Explanations for the Route
Polish officials have given different accounts of how the drone reached Rusinowo, and none is confirmed. Investigators have not established where or when it launched, where it entered the sea, or its mission. Prosecutors are also checking for a link to Tuesday’s drone shootdown over Lithuania.
Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz said Monday the drone was thought to have been lost during Russian test maneuvers over the Baltic, ARY News reported. European Pravda quotes him saying it most likely flew from Russia via Lithuania. Lt. Col. Jacek Goryszewski of Poland’s Operational Command told Politico the likeliest explanation is a drift from international waters into Polish territorial waters.
The Lithuania drone that Italian Typhoons shot down early Tuesday likely carried explosives too, the country’s air force commander said. Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned Sunday that the coming weeks and months will bring intense Russian activity.
DroneXL’s Take
On Tuesday I wrote that the drone was never the weapon, the bill was. A live fragmentation warhead in the surf near Jarosławiec, a seaside resort, makes that read incomplete. Some of these airframes come armed.
What bothers me more is the route. A drone that drifted in from international waters and a drone that flew across Lithuania are different problems. The first points to Russian testing too close to NATO’s coastline. The second is an armed aircraft crossing an allied country before it ever reached Poland. Poland’s defense minister and its Operational Command have now pointed at different ones.
Poland has the airframe on a lab bench. That answer should come from the hardware, and Polish officials should publish it. Eastern Sentry can’t close a gap nobody has located.
Sources: Politico, United24, TVP World, European Pravda
DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.
