ANKARA — Turkish Ministry of National Defense said an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that washed ashore on the Black Sea coast in Ordu was assessed as “likely” belonging to Russia, after specialists inspected the object and determined it contained no explosives.
The UAV was found on Tuesday on a beach in Ünye, about 450 miles east of İstanbul, the ministry spokesperson said during a weekly briefing. A team from Underwater Defense Group Command (SAS) was dispatched the following day, and the object was later handed to the Ünye Police Department for further examination.
Officials did not publicly identify the drone model or explain how it reached Turkey’s shoreline. In its public statement, the ministry said only that it was “assessed” as Russian—language that indicates a preliminary attribution rather than a fully disclosed technical determination.
The beach discovery comes as Black Sea security anxieties rise amid Ukraine’s war with Russia, with NATO member Turkey trying to limit escalation while maintaining relations with both Kyiv and Moscow. Turkey’s strategic leverage stems in part from its control of the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, the maritime chokepoints linking the Black Sea to the Mediterranean—making even “stray” incidents politically sensitive for Ankara.
The Ordu incident also extends a recent pattern of drone-related events along Turkey’s Black Sea rim. In mid-December, Turkey said its F-16s shot down an “out of control” UAV that approached Turkish airspace from the Black Sea and was destroyed in a safe area; authorities said the drone’s type and origin were unclear, and later urged both Russia and Ukraine to exercise caution to protect regional security.
Three days later, Turkey’s interior ministry announced that a Russian-origin Kocaeli incident was under investigation after a Russian-made Orlan-10 reconnaissance UAV was found in a rural area—an episode that underscored Ankara’s concern that reconnaissance platforms and debris could drift or fall across borders amid intensified operations around the Black Sea.
More recently, on February 5, fishermen reported an unidentified object believed to be a UAV in the sea near Karaburun, prompting a response by Turkish Coast Guard Command and an on-scene examination. Turkish authorities did not issue an official identification for that object at the time; some local reporting described it as a drone that was later neutralized, highlighting the uncertainty that can accompany such finds until forensic reviews are completed.
Against that backdrop, officials framed the Ordu find as a controlled safety event rather than an immediate threat: specialists found no explosives in the washed-ashore UAV and transferred it to police custody for technical examination.
