When Ali Cabuk spotted a washed-up military drone on a Turkish Black Sea beach, he did not reach for his phone to call the police, military or a bomb disposal unit. Instead, he consulted artificial intelligence. Reassured that the Russian drone was not packed with explosives, he then took it home.

The bizarre incident, the story of which has circulated widely on Turkish social media, has highlighted a novel risk of the modern war-torn age, namely the erratic intersection of civilian AI reliance, amateur engineering and detritus of regional conflicts.

Unorthodox hazard assessment

“Every morning, I walk along here [a beach of Camlibel village in Karasu, Sakarya province] with my wife and my grandchild. Whenever we come across anything useful, we take it. We usually take things we need for the garden,” Cabuk, 63, told local news service Ihlas.

“This time [on July 11], we saw that a UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle, or drone] had washed up on the shore. We immediately pulled it to the side and I asked artificial intelligence on my mobile phone about it,” he added.

“AI told me that it had come from Russia and that there was no bomb inside. So, we loaded it into the car. We took it away. It was quite heavy. It must have weighed around 15 to 20 kilograms.”

Added Cabuk: “I couldn't have loaded it by myself. Together with my wife and grandchild, we grabbed it by the wings and put it in the back of the vehicle...

“Afterwards, I told the village headman [muhtar] and he informed the gendarmerie. The gendarmerie arrived and conducted their investigation… The gendarmerie called Adapazari [the main city in the province] to summon the bomb disposal squad. We didn't then even go near it. We stood 500 meters away. They explained things to us and told us it was dangerous. The bomb disposal team arrived about an hour later and confirmed that there was no bomb.”

Assortment of components regularly found on beach

“We weren't afraid,” reflected Cabuk, “because [UAV] parts constantly wash up. I started to say, 'One day I will find the actual thing itself, it will come' and that day came. I have its parts in my hands.

“Later, of course, the gendarmerie told me that I had done something very dangerous. Only then did I realise what a big and dangerous thing I had done. I will never do something like this again. I'll report things directly to the gendarmerie.”

Cabuk continued: “Everyone wanted to see it. They liked it too. I really liked it myself, anyway. It had a nice two-cylinder engine. I tinkered with it a bit. I messed around with the engine, but I didn't touch the front part at all. The battery was there, the fuel tank, everything was there. I didn't really mess with that part. The engine caught my attention. It had a nice engine.”

The helpful but misguided Cabuk also reflected: “I even took it to the gendarmerie station myself. It was so big that it wouldn't have fitted into their vehicle. So I helped them out too. We even covered it up so that nobody would see it. We brought it to the gendarmerie station without anyone seeing us do so. They put it in a room. They didn't even want to leave it outside.”

Drifting debris of warfare

With the escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian war in the Black Sea theatre, the sea has become highly congested with electronic and kinetic warfare. Dozens of drifting naval mines have been defused by the Turkish, Romanian and Bulgarian navies.

Both Ukraine and Russia also deploy a vast array of cheap, petrol-powered drones, many of which crash due to fuel exhaustion, mechanical failure or GPS jamming.

Since last September, reports of drones from both sides washing up on the Turkish coast have become frequent.