Armed Russian drone found near Polish beach: officials

A Russian Gerbera-2 drone armed with explosives was found in the sea off northern Poland this week, officials said Wednesday (September 16, 2026)."The aerial craft was secured and it was established that it was armed" after it was found on Monday (September 14), military affairs prosecutor Bartosz Okoniewski told journalists."It contained a warhead with a detonator," he said, without providing further information.The drone will undergo further examination by the military to determine where it came from and what its intended target was.Defence minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said on Monday (September 14) that the military had located the drone near the village of Rusinowo in northwestern Poland and recovered it from the sea.He added that the drone was thought to have been lost by Russia during test manoeuvres over the Baltic Sea.The military affairs department of the district prosecutor's office in the northwestern city of Szczecin launched proceedings over the incident.Okoniewski said the department was investigating a suspected charge of "causing an incident that endangers the life or health of many people and property of great value".Poland, a NATO and EU member state bordering both Ukraine and Russia's Kaliningrad exclave, has faced repeated drone incursions into its territory since the beginning of Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Published - September 16, 2026 11:00 pm IST