Romania has downed two further Russian drones, each day on the weekend after downing a Russian drone on Friday around 114KM outside Bucharest. Romanian pilots with F-16s were dispatched in each incident who downed the drones successfully.
The latest drone was intercepted at 10:13 am by a Romanian Air Force F-16 and brought down 12 kilometres northeast of the coastal town of Sulina, over Romania’s territorial waters in the Black Sea.
A second drone entered Romanian airspace on Saturday morning as Russia continued attacking civilian and infrastructure targets in Ukraine near the Romanian border. Two Romanian F-16s intercepted and destroyed it shortly after it was detected at 8:22 am. The drone was brought down approximately 10 kilometres west-northwest of Sfântu Gheorghe in Tulcea County, in an uninhabited and difficult-to-access area of the Danube Delta.
Romanian Defence Minister Radu Miruță said the flight pattern of Saturday’s drone was consistent with previous Russian incursions. Fragments from Friday’s Shahed drone have been recovered, while searches for wreckage from the other two incidents remain ongoing.
Romania’s Defence Ministry said that Russian drones have entered Romanian airspace without authorisation 33 times since the beginning of its war in Ukraine. The repeated breaches have occurred as Russia intensifies its attacks on Ukrainian ports and infrastructure along the Danube, immediately across the border from Romania.
President Nicușor Dan described the violations as “inadmissible and intolerable”, stressing that Romanian airspace is also NATO and European Union airspace. Romania’s Foreign Ministry summoned the Russian ambassador in Bucharest following the three incidents and announced that it would lodge a formal diplomatic protest.
Newsroom
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