Drone breaches airspace of NATO member Romania during Russian attack on Ukraine

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 says.

Defense Minister Ionut Mosteanu says 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-kilometer (400-mile) border with Ukraine, has had Russian drone fragments fall onto its territory repeatedly since Russia began waging war on Ukraine in 2022.

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 says in a statement.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says on X that data showed the drone breached about 10 kilometers (six miles) into Romanian territory and operated in NATO airspace for around 50 minutes.

“It is an obvious expansion of the war by Russia – and this is exactly how they act,” he says. “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.