Romanian military forces shot down a drone that entered the country’s airspace Friday, officials confirmed — a historic first for the NATO nation despite dozens of previous airspace violations.
The incident has intensified concerns about the security of NATO’s eastern border as fighting between Russia and Ukraine continues to escalate.
At a news conference, Romania’s army chief of staff said authorities had not yet determined where the drone came from or what its mission was, and that an investigation was underway.
However, Chief of Staff General Gheorghita Vlad indicated the aircraft appeared to be a Shahed — the Iran-designed attack drone that Russia has repeatedly deployed against Ukrainian targets.
“Visually, the pilots reported the drone looked to be a Shahed type,” General Vlad said, cautioning that it was too early to draw firm conclusions.
An army source had told Reuters earlier in the day: “There is an ongoing investigation to determine the origin of the drone. But in this part of the world it is Russia that is the attacker.”
President Nicusor Dan announced the takedown on social media platform X, saying a Romanian pilot fired on the drone at approximately 11 a.m. local time (0800 GMT) after it crossed into Romanian territory.
“The area was uninhabited, so the pilot was able to shoot without any risk. Currently, teams of the relevant institutions are investigating the area to come up with all the details about the incident,” Dan wrote.
Romania’s Defence Ministry identified the location of the shootdown as near the town of Padina in Buzau county in the eastern part of the country. The drone was first picked up on radar at 9:30 a.m. (0639 GMT), roughly 20 kilometers (12 miles) east of Sulina along the Black Sea coast.
Four aircraft were deployed in response to the incursion: two Romanian F-16 jets and two Italian Eurofighter Typhoons stationed in Romania.
Pieces of the downed drone landed in a wheat field. The Buzau county prefect told reporters no injuries or property damage resulted from the debris.
Romania shares a 650-kilometer (400-mile) land border with Ukraine and has documented numerous violations of its airspace by Russian drones since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in 2022 and began striking Ukrainian ports along the Danube River.
General Vlad noted that Russian attacks on Ukraine’s Odessa region have been ramping up ahead of the harvest season, putting additional strain on vital energy and trade corridors in the Black Sea.
The situation has been building in severity. In late May, a drone crashed into an apartment building in the town of Galati near the Ukrainian border, injuring two people — the first time a strike had struck a heavily populated area within a NATO country and caused casualties during the Ukraine conflict.
