Romania scrambled fighter
jets on Saturday when a drone breached the country’s airspace
during a Russian attack on Ukrainian infrastructure near the
border, the defense ministry said.
Defense Minister Ionut Mosteanu said the F-16 pilots came
close to taking down the drone as it was flying very low before
it left national airspace toward Ukraine.
A threat of drone strikes also prompted Poland to deploy
aircraft and close an airport in the eastern city of Lublin on
Saturday, three days after it shot down Russian drones in its
airspace with the backing of aircraft from its NATO allies.
Romania, a European Union and NATO state which shares a 650-km
(400-mile) border with Ukraine, has had Russian drone fragments
fall onto its territory repeatedly since Russia began waging war
on its neighbor.
On Saturday, it scrambled two F-16 fighter jets and later
two Eurofighters – part of German air policing missions in
Romania – and warned citizens in the southeastern county of
Tulcea near the Danube and its Ukrainian border to take cover,
the defense ministry said in a statement.
It added the jets detected a drone in national airspace,
which they followed until it dropped off the radar 20 km
southwest of the village of Chilia Veche.
Mosteanu told private television station Antena 3 that
helicopters will survey the area near the border to look for
potential drone parts, “but all information at this moment
indicates the drone exited airspace to Ukraine.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on social media
platform X that data showed the drone breached about 10
kilometers into Romanian territory and operated in NATO airspace
for around 50 minutes.
“It is an obvious expansion of the war by Russia \u2013 and this
is exactly how they act,” he said. “Sanctions against Russia are
needed. Tariffs against Russian trade are needed. Collective
defense is needed.”
NATO announced plans to beef up the defense of Europe’s eastern
flank on Friday, after Poland shot down drones that had violated
its airspace, the first known shots fired by a member of the
Western alliance during Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Romanian lawmakers approved a law earlier this year enabling the
army to shoot down drones illegally breaching Romanian airspace
during peacetime, based on threat levels and risks to human life
and property, but the bill does not yet have all enforcement
rules approved.
Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard wrote on
platform X that the airspace breach was “another unacceptable
violation of NATO airspace.”
“Sweden stands in full solidarity with Romania as a NATO
Ally and EU Member State. We are always ready to contribute<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Romania scrambled fighterjets on Saturday when a drone breached the country’s airspaceduring a Russian attack on Ukrainian infrastructure near theborder, the defense ministry said.Defense Minister Ionut Mosteanu said the F-16 pilots cameclose to taking down the drone as it was flying very low beforeit left national airspace toward Ukraine.A threat of drone strikes also prompted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n