A military sea drone found last week off the Greek island of Lefkada is Ukrainian and posed a threat to navigation, Greece’s defence minister said Tuesday.
Nikos Dendias, in Brussels for a ministers meeting, said he had briefed European counterparts on the “drone that we fished in Greece” on Thursday, adding that “we have certainty” that it was of Ukrainian origin.
Dendias said it was an “extremely serious issue” that affected the freedom and security of navigation.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry spokesman Georgiy Tykhy said Kyiv had “no information whatsoever” about the drone.
“There is no evidence at all that it belongs to Ukrainian maritime drone operators,” he said.
“We are open to cooperating with the Greek side to clarify the circumstances of the incident if we receive appropriate requests from them.”
The Greek coastguard on Friday said it had initially taken custody of the sea drone after it was found by fishermen and towed to a Lefkada port, before handing it over to the armed forces.
A Greek military source told AFP over the weekend that army and navy experts had found explosives on board.
Officials had earlier said the unmanned surface vehicle resembled a Magura-class sea drone used by Ukraine’s armed forces against Russian ships in the Crimea.
Dendias said on Tuesday he had told his colleagues about the drone during an EU ministers meeting, which Ukraine’s defence minister was taking part in via videolink.
Greek Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis said on Monday his country would not allow “military activity to develop in the wider Mediterranean region”.
“Greece will take all necessary steps to ensure, unequivocally, that the Mediterranean does not become a theatre of military operations,” he said in a statement.
Ukraine has admitted to targeting Russian tankers in the Mediterranean.
In December, Kyiv said it had hit a Russian “shadow fleet” tanker with aerial drones in the Mediterranean, its first strike in that sea since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Source: AFP