Polish prosecutors said a Gerbera-2 drone recovered near Rusinowo on the Baltic coast carried a fragmentation high-explosive warhead with a fuze, after an earlier attempt to examine the aircraft by portable X-ray produced no usable internal image.1 2
Military personnel retrieved the drone from the Baltic Sea near Rusinowo, close to Jarosławiec, on Sept. 14. Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz said at the time that growing evidence indicated Russia had probably lost a new Gerbera-type model and urged caution in public commentary and analysis.3
On Sept. 15, RMF24 reported that military specialists could not inspect the intact aircraft with a specialized X-ray device because its outer skin did not transmit the X-rays. The report said specialists were seeking another way to examine and, if necessary, disarm the drone while preserving the airframe. At that point, they had confirmed no radiological, biological or chemical hazard; the minister’s preliminary assessment had been that the craft lacked a main warhead but might contain a small self-destruct charge.1
The next day, Col. Bartosz Okoniewski of the Poznań District Prosecutor’s Office told the Polish Press Agency that the aircraft contained a fragmentation high-explosive warhead and fuze. He said the warhead, carrying about 4 kilograms of explosive, was separated from the airframe and neutralized on the beach on the evening of Sept. 15. The airframe was then moved to a military site for further examination.2
The sequence shows why the initial X-ray finding should not be read as proof of a purpose-built X-ray-shielding material. The public reporting did not identify the material of the recovered aircraft, the X-ray system’s energy or the scan geometry. The X-ray result established a forensic limitation in that examination, not its cause or an intent to defeat X-ray screening.1
The U.S. Army’s Worldwide Equipment Guide describes the broader Gerbera family as a low-cost Russian decoy and scouting drone normally built from plywood and foam. It says Gerberas are not normally equipped with warheads but can carry payloads of up to 10 kilograms. That general description does not establish the exact construction or configuration of the Rusinowo aircraft, which Polish prosecutors described only as preliminarily identified as a Russian Gerbera-2.2 4
Prosecutors are investigating a possible danger to life, health or high-value property from an explosion, as well as the use of an aircraft to cross the Polish border without permission. They said the inquiry would seek to establish where the drone launched and where it was intended to fly. Those facts remain under investigation.2
The original LinkedIn lead was posted by Wes O’Donnell.5