CLEMENT MAHOUDEAU/AFP via Getty Images
- Romania said on Sunday that it deployed F-16s to intercept a Russian drone breaching its airspace.
- Local authorities said the drone lingered for 50 minutes and was ‘very close’ to being shot down.
- It’s another tense drone situation for NATO as the West believes Russia is trying to test its readiness.
Romania is the second NATO country in the last week to report a Russian drone incursion, as the alliance remains on edge over a wave of airspace violations reported by Poland several days ago.
“Today, the Romanian Air Force intercepted a Russian drone violating our national airspace,” wrote Romania’s defense minister, Ionut Mosteanu, in a statement on Sunday.
“Two F-16s from the 86th Air Base scrambled and tracked it until it disappeared near Chilia Veche. The population was never in danger,” Mosteanu added.
The minister later said on local TV that the F-16 Fighting Falcons were “very close” to shooting down the Russian drone, which Mosteanu said was flying low but eventually exited Romanian airspace.
The drone was detected while Romanian forces were monitoring the northern border on Saturday evening, amid a Russian attack on nearby Ukrainian infrastructure, Mosteanu said.
The country’s defense ministry said the drone flew in Romanian airspace for about 50 minutes and that the F-16 pilots, who were on patrol and then deployed to meet the threat, had been authorized to shoot it down.
But the drone headed back to Ukraine, leaving near the town of Pardina in northern Dobruja close to the Black Sea, per the ministry.
“Romania condemns Russia’s reckless behavior, which threatens regional stability,” Mosteanu’s statement said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in a statement on Saturday about Romania’s reported incursion, said that the Russian drone had “penetrated about 10 kilometers,” or six miles, into NATO airspace.
Russia’s main arsenal of long-range drones consists mostly of the Geran, a locally produced version of the explosive-packed Iranian Shahed drone, and the Gerbera, a decoy version.
Romania has said it has dealt with such incursions before, scrambling fighter jets several times over the years after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022. Some were reported as having crashed inside Romania.
But Saturday’s incident comes as NATO has been on high alert since Poland said on Wednesday that it had detected at least 19 Russian drones entering its airspace. That act has been widely interpreted in the West as an attempt to probe the alliance’s readiness, cohesion, and response to aggression.
NATO fighter jets, including Dutch F-35s and Polish F-16s, scrambled to confront the drones, shooting down at least three.
The incursions in Poland happened while Russia was conducting one of its large-scale attacks on Ukraine, and the Kremlin has denied deliberately flying drones into Polish airspace. However, it hasn’t acknowledged if its drones entered NATO airspace.
In response to Romania’s incursion report, Russia’s ambassador to Romania, Vladimir Lipayev, said Bucharest’s complaint was a “provocation by the Kyiv regime.”
“In the absence of objective confirmation of the nationality of the aircraft, the protest was rejected as far-fetched and unfounded,” he told Russian state media outlet TASS.
Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, condemned the reported breach in Romania as “reckless escalation” by Moscow.
“The violation of Romanian airspace by Russian drones is yet another unacceptable breach of an EU Member State’s sovereignty,” she said in a statement on Sunday.
In February, Romania passed a law that gave its forces the authority to shoot down or destroy Russian drones illegally entering its airspace.
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