Russian drone flies deep into Romania before crashing in Moldova

A Russian drone penetrated Romanian airspace this week and headed deeper into the NATO country before turning back toward Moldova, highlighting the alliance’s increasingly difficult task of keeping unmanned aircraft out of its vulnerable skies.

The incident Tuesday came as NATO separately conducted a multinational nighttime exercise over Poland focused specifically on finding, identifying and intercepting drones, according to Spain’s defense ministry.

The events showcase how drone warfare spilling out of Ukraine has become a main feature of the security environment on NATO’s eastern flank.

In recent months, NATO jets have shot down encroaching drones on multiple occasions and scrambled in response to other incursions as hostilities ripple beyond Ukraine. In July, a wayward Russian missile crash-landed in Poland, stoking fear among nearby residents.

The Romanian incident on Tuesday began when radar detected an aerial target west of Chisinau, Moldova, at 4:33 p.m., according to a timeline released Wednesday by Romania’s Defense Ministry.

Four minutes later, the drone crossed into Romanian airspace about 20 miles southeast of Iasi, prompting two Spanish F-18s assigned to NATO’s enhanced air policing mission to take off from Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base, the ministry said.

The airbase also is a main hub for U.S. forces in the Black Sea region.

Rather than remaining near the Romanian border, the drone continued west toward the country’s interior, reaching a point just north of the city of Roman, about 100 miles from Ukraine. The drone then changed direction and headed back into Moldova, where it crashed, Romania’s defense ministry said.

Moldovan officials later identified the drone as one of two Russian drones that entered its country during attacks on neighboring Ukraine, Reuters reported. The incursion delayed the takeoff of a plane carrying Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was traveling from a Moldovan airport to Norway on Tuesday.

Moldova’s ambassador to the U.S., Vladislav Kulminski, told CNN it was “too early to say” whether the drone was targeting the Ukrainian president.

NATO members have been grappling with how to respond to such incidents. But while countries like Romania and Poland have sought new counter-drone technologies, including the U.S.-made Merops system, expensive fighter jet scrambles remain a main feature of the allied response.

Spain’s defense ministry said Wednesday that aircraft from five NATO countries recently participated in an operation over Poland geared specifically toward defending against unmanned aircraft.

Forces from Spain, Poland, the Czech Republic, France and Turkey participated, along with a NATO airborne warning and control aircraft.

The nighttime exercise involved locating and intercepting drones. Spanish F-18 crews combined their aircraft radar with targeting pods, helmet-mounted sights and night-vision equipment during the training.

“These joint and combined activities allow capabilities provided by different allies to be flexibly integrated,” the ministry said, adding that the training was intended to demonstrate NATO’s ability to respond in a coordinated way to threats.