On Sunday, Romanian officials confirmed the downing of a drone, marking the third such incident in recent days involving NATO aircraft intercepting unmanned aerial vehicles.
A Romanian F-16 fighter jet intercepted the drone at 10:13 a.m. local time near the country’s border with southwestern Ukraine, according to Romanian President Nicușor Dan. This area has witnessed frequent drone incursions from Ukraine amid Russian bombardments of Ukrainian ports close to the Danube River, which separates Romanian and Ukrainian territories.
Romania shares approximately 400 miles of land border with Ukraine. While drones have intruded into NATO airspace, they have not been considered attacks on the alliance, thus avoiding prompting collective response discussions among all 32 members. However, these persistent incidents have led Eastern European members of NATO to strengthen their anti-drone defenses.
The Romanian defense ministry reported that the drone was shot down ‘safely,’ just over seven miles northeast of the port of Sulina within Romania’s territorial waters. Romanian authorities did not confirm whether the drone intercepted on Sunday was of Russian origin, but President Dan criticized Russia’s actions, stating it was ‘intolerable for the Russian Federation to continue violating Romania’s airspace, which is, at the same time, NATO airspace and European Union airspace.’
On Saturday, Romanian officials reported a drone interception in an unpopulated area close to the Ukrainian border after radar detection at 8:22 a.m. local time. The incident followed NATO’s announcement that two Romanian F-16s and two Italian Eurofighter jets, operating under the alliance’s command, were scrambled on Friday to intercept a drone near Romanian airspace. According to Romanian investigators, the drone was confirmed as Russian-made. Debris from the drone and intercept missile fell near two towns northeast of Bucharest, with no casualties or injuries reported.
Early Sunday, the governor of Ukraine’s southwestern Odesa region, adjacent to Romania, issued several air raid alerts for border areas. Coinciding with these events, Russia’s defense ministry announced strikes on the Ukrainian port of Chornomorsk, southwest of Odesa, targeting fuel tanks purportedly used by the Ukrainian military.