Russian Drone Found on Polish Beach Carried Live Explosive Warhead, Prosecutors Confirm

Polish military prosecutors told the Polish Press Agency (PAP) on September 16 that an armed Russian drone recovered from a beach at Rusinowo carried a live warhead, neutralized on site, and preliminarily identified as a Gerbera 2.

Col. Bartosz Okoniewski, deputy district prosecutor for military affairs at the District Prosecutor's Office in Poznań, informed the agency that the recovered aircraft had been armed.

"It contained a fragmentation-high-explosive warhead together with a fuze," Okoniewski stated to PAP. "We managed to separate the warhead from the aircraft itself, and then, for safety reasons, the warhead was neutralized right there on the beach."

He added that the warhead was detonated on the evening of September 15. The airframe, now stripped of its warhead, was moved to a military site for detailed inspection, where preliminary findings indicated it was a Gerbera 2 type produced and used by Russia.

The drone was located on September 14 near Rusinowo, close to Jarosławiec, in Poland's West Pomeranian region. Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz announced the recovery that day, describing the object as a Russian military unmanned aircraft.

Read more

Category

World

Russian Military Drone Recovered From Baltic Sea Near Polish Beach

Sep 14, 2026 18:05

On September 16, Poland's Military Gendarmerie reported that soldiers had extracted, examined and neutralized components that could pose a threat, then secured the drone for laboratory analysis.

The on-site inspection, as Okoniewski detailed to PAP, was led by a prosecutor from the military division of the Szczecin-Niebuszewo District Prosecutor's Office. The Military Counterintelligence Service, military and police sappers, gendarmerie officers and the fire service also took part.

The prosecutor's office has opened a case under a preliminary classification of causing an event that threatens the life or health of many people, or property of great value, through an explosion. Investigators are additionally examining the use of an aircraft to cross the state border without the required permission.

The Gerbera is a cheap Russian drone typically fielded as a decoy and a reconnaissance platform alongside heavier Shahed-type strike aircraft, though armed and reconnaissance variants also exist.

Built largely from plywood and foam, the type carries a standard range of roughly 700 kilometers, with examples recovered abroad fitted with extra nose fuel tanks to stretch that reach.

Ukrainian estimates have put the production cost at around $10,000 per aircraft, enabling the drones to be launched in numbers that force defenders to expend far costlier interceptors.

According to PAP, Kosiniak-Kamysz linked the recovery to the downing of a Russian drone over Lithuania on the night of September 15. He suggested that the aircraft found in Poland might also have flown over Lithuania on September 13, where it was tracked and targeted for an attempted neutralization.

Read more

Category

Opinion

Why Europe Can’t Really Rearm Without Ukraine’s Experience

Mar 31, 2026 13:17

The drone then, in his account, "crossed the Lithuanian border with the Kaliningrad region and most likely operated over the Baltic." He indicated that Poland and Lithuania would investigate jointly, with the services of both countries cooperating.

The recovery followed a run of similar incidents across the Baltic in September. On September 13, an object that crossed from Lithuania into Russia's Kaliningrad region was identified as a drone.

Around the same time, a resident near Finland's Pellinki archipelago found an unmanned aircraft assessed as a Russian-made Geoscan 701. Two weeks earlier, on August 31, Polish fighter jets intercepted a Russian Il-20 reconnaissance aircraft over the Baltic Sea roughly 30 kilometers north of Łeba.

Protect Ukrainian Skies

Subscribe to Sky Defense