Nato scrambles jets as Russian drones make deepest incursion into Romania | Romania
NATO jets moved to track two Russian drones that crossed into Romania on Tuesday; This attack was the deepest and first daytime attack on the country’s airspace since the start of full-scale war in Ukraine.
German Typhoon and Romanian F-16 fighter jets took off in pairs to follow the uncrewed aircraft. The first flew back into Ukrainian airspace, but the second was later found shot down at Puieşti, about 70 miles from Ukraine.
Romanian defense minister Ionuţ Moşteanu said that two German pilots were ordered to shoot down the second drone. He eventually said it looked like he crashed, probably because he ran out of fuel.
The minister added that examination of the wreckage showed that the drone was unarmed. “It could have been destroyed if all the conditions had been met…pilots had to see it, engage it, lock it on radar and be able to fire missiles at it.”
The defense ministry said the first drone was detected at 6.28am local time (0428 GMT) and the second at 7.50am. People in Romania’s tri-border region were told to hide in the morning until the incident was resolved.
This is the 13th violation of Romanian airspace by Russian drones, the third incident in the past week and the first in daylight. Last week, villagers on the Romanian side of the Ukrainian border were evacuated after a tanker carrying liquefied petroleum gas was hit and caught fire in the nearby Ukrainian port of Izmail across the Danube.
Six drones also entered Moldova’s airspace overnight, according to the country’s defense ministry. One of them, a distinctive hang glider model with the Russian Z symbol spray-painted on its tail fin, landed on a rooftop in the village of Cuhureştii de Jos, 24 kilometers from the Ukrainian border.
After investigation, the country’s police said that the drone was an unarmed Gerbera decoy and was used by the Russians to defeat Ukrainian air defenses and launch more and more attacks on the airspace of neighboring countries. They claimed that the drone landed when it ran out of fuel.
In September, 21 unarmed Gerbera drones crossed into Poland in an apparently deliberate attack by Russia. The incident led NATO to create the Eastern Sentinel mission, with increased fighter jet patrols in countries on the alliance’s eastern flank.
However, using fighter jets to shoot down drones is an expensive way to deal with the threat and is not always practical due to the dangers of shooting down a Russian or unknown ship over a population center.
During his visit to Romania’s Mihail Kogǎlniceanu air base, General Christopher Donahue, the commander of the US army in Europe and Africa, said that a new capability that can shoot down unmanned aerial vehicles will be deployed in the country.
“We have tested it and it is in the final stages of use. Romanian soldiers and other alliance soldiers have been trained on this skill, and I know you will see this skill in the delta.” [of the Danube] very soon,” he said.
