Romania shoots down second drone incursion in two days
BUCHAREST — Romania announced it shot down a second drone breaching national airspace in as many days over a sparsely populated area near the border with Ukraine, reports BritPanorama.
The first drone, which Romanian prosecutors investigating the fragments said was Russian, was shot down on Friday. This marked the first instance of Romania downing a drone after numerous airspace breaches. President Nicusor Dan confirmed that the second drone was intercepted at 8:30 a.m. local time, approximately six miles west of Sfantu Gheorghe in the Danube Delta.
The defense ministry noted that the airspace breach had been detected by radar at 8:22 a.m., leading to the deployment of two F-16 fighter jets. Though the specific origin of Saturday’s drone was not disclosed, prosecutors identified the one downed on Friday as Russian.
Since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Romania, sharing a 400-mile land border with Ukraine, has reported approximately 30 airspace breaches by Russian drones, as tensions escalate in the region. Notably, in May, a Russian drone crash-landed into an apartment building in the Romanian town of Galati, injuring two individuals; this incident marked the first time a drone strike had affected a densely populated area in a NATO country since the conflict began.
On Friday, General Gheorghita Vlad, the chief of staff of the Romanian army, remarked on the increased frequency of Russian assaults around the Ukrainian port of Odesa, particularly in light of the impending harvest season. Such incursions threaten critical energy and trade routes in the Black Sea.
