Moldovan officials took the Russian drone that had crashed onto a residential house and placed it right in front of the Russian embassy.
The foreign ministry also summoned the Russian ambassador over the crash.
Moldova, which lies between Ukraine and NATO member Romania, has repeatedly seen violations of its airspace since Russia’s invasion of its neighbor in 2022 and has expelled dozens of diplomats and employees of the Russian embassy.
After summoning Oleg Ozerov, the Russian ambassador to Chisinau, on Wednesday, Moldova’s foreign ministry placed the crashed drone in front of the embassy.
The ministry later published a video on social media of Ozerov exiting the embassy and passing by the drone marked with a red “Z”.
On Tuesday, the drone fell on a house in a village in northeastern Moldova, close to the Ukrainian border. A total of six drones breached Moldova’s airspace, according to the government.
The foreign ministry said it had handed Ozerov “a note of protest regarding the illegal overflight”, deeming it “totally unacceptable” and “a serious violation of the sovereignty” of Moldova.
Asked by Moldovan media about the crashed drone, Ozerov dismissed the issue, asking why the drone was found on a roof but did not destroy anything.
“Do you believe this?”, he asked, pointing to “many attempts to damage our relations with Moldova, which are already at their lowest point in history”.
Moldova’s pro-EU government announced in early November that it had approved a bill to close a Russian cultural center, saying it was “by no means cultural”. The move was condemned by the Kremlin and Moldova’s pro-Russian opposition.
The bill which needs parliament’s approval while the government says it plans to close the center by summer 2026.
