Defense Minister wants to ask Ukraine to program its marine drones to self-detonate before entering Romanian waters
Interim Defense Minister Radu Miruță said he had sent a ten-question request to Ukraine after the incident in the Port of Constanţa, but that the authorities in Kiev had not yet sent “a clear answer” about what happened to the marine drone.
In a broadcast on TVR Info, the government official assured that he has taken all possible steps to clarify the situation and that he will ask for guarantees from Ukraine so that such incidents do not happen again.
He specified that he proposed that the Ukrainian side be requested by Romania that the naval drones be programmed in such a way that if control over them is lost, the coordinates of the drones do not allow entry into Romanian territorial waters and they self-detonate 12 nautical miles away.
“As the Minister of Defense, I sent an official request, with 10 questions, to the Minister of Defense of Ukraine. I also spoke with him on the phone during Friday. We are waiting for answers to these questions. We will not accept the answer that we do not consider sufficiently reasoned. If it were the case. I do not know. We will validate the answers we will receive with the data we have and I will not stop until there is a whole sense in this development,” said Miruță on Thursday, at TVR Info.
The minister also revealed some of the questions asked in the official request to his Ukrainian counterpart:
- “What was the plan of these drones entering the territorial waters?
- What was their mission?
- When did they lose control of these drones?
- They lost control of the communications of these drones, but did they know the positioning of the drones or not?
- When did they know the drone got stuck and ended up where it did?
- What kind of communications did they have with this drone?
- What was the explosive charge? Did he only have one? Did they have them all?“.
“These are legitimate questions about which the Romanian state must be crystal clear,” the official pointed out.
Proposal for drones to self-destruct
Radu Miruță also said that he will propose to Kiev that the drones be programmed in such a way that they self-destruct if they approach more than 12 nautical miles from the Romanian shore of the Black Sea.
“I also thought we would ask for one more thing (…). It is something that can be done and that I will propose. These drones have a lot of electronic components on them. These drones, in the analysis of the results of these electronic components, can know their manufacturers or who controls them if you happen to lose them, if it happens, I don't know, other missions that you have in the Black Sea, when they approach the territorial waters of Romania, at 12 nautical miles, control, program the controller that manages this drone to detonate automatically, without anyone following them,” the minister said.
“If due to various mistakes, loss, control, you get to this area, you can no longer advance, default programming on this product from the moment you launch it into the water”, explained Miruță, about the proposal that Romania intends to send to Ukraine.
