Eastern Nato members scramble jets as Romania reports fresh drone incursion

Ukrainian rescue personnel and medics operate at the site of a heavily damaged residential building following a Russian air strike in the city of Ternopil on November 19. Photo / Yuriy Dyachyshyn, AFP

Nato members Romania and Poland have scrambled fighter jets after Russian attacks in neighbouring Ukraine, with Bucharest saying a drone breached the country’s airspace.

Moldova, which lies between Romania and Ukraine, also reported a drone breach, summoning the Russian ambassador.

Romania and Moldova have repeatedly seen violations of their airspaces, including drone fragments falling on to their soil, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

On Wednesday, Romania’s defence ministry said that after Russian air strikes on Ukraine, “for a few minutes, the signal of a drone was detected, which had entered approximately eight kilometres into national airspace” before it disappeared from the radar.

The drone then “reappeared intermittently on radar for approximately 12 minutes”, the ministry said, with phone alerts sent to residents in the affected regions.

Two “F-16s of the Romanian Air Force were scrambled,” the ministry added, saying that “no cases of aircraft impact with the ground have been reported”.

“Teams of specialists are ready to begin ground searches,” it added.

Moldova also reported its airspace was breached by a drone during the night and decided to summon the Russian ambassador on Thursday “to convey the firm protest” over the “serious violation of national sovereignty”, announced the foreign ministry.

“After an exchange of information with partners in Ukraine and Romania, it has been confirmed that a drone flew over the national airspace,” the country’s defence ministry had earlier said in a press release, adding the aircraft flying at a low altitude of approximately 100m in the south was not detected on monitoring systems.

‘Readiness’

Poland, which became the first Nato member to shoot down drones during the ongoing war in Ukraine as over 20 drones violated its airspace in September, also scrambled jets early on Wednesday morning following Russian strikes on neighbouring Ukrainian territory, without reporting any airspace breach.

“Alert fighter pairs and an early warning aircraft were scrambled, and radar reconnaissance systems reached the highest state of readiness,” announced the Operational Command of the Armed Forces via X.

On Monday, Romania ordered the evacuation of two villages – the first such evacuation in the country as a result of the war in Ukraine – after a Russian drone attack across the Danube river in neighbouring Ukraine set fire to a ship carrying liquefied petroleum gas.

The evacuation order was lifted on Tuesday.

- Agence France-Presse