Acting Defense Minister Radu Miruta spoke with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
Romania chose not to shoot down a drone that strayed into an eastern city and exploded to avoid greater damage, the acting defense minister said Friday.
Radu Miruta said he had a telephone conversation with NATO-Secretary Mark Rutte about the incident.
Romania scrambled two F-16s who had the green light to fire but abstained.
“In the 4 minutes that (the drone ) was in Romanian airspace, it could not be fired without the projectile causing greater damage in… Galati,” he said.
“The war on Romania’s borders is a reality. Equally real is our responsibility to make rational decisions, based on facts, not on emotion or speculation,” he added.
He said he spoke to President Nicor Dan and NATO allies.
In his conversation with Mark Rutte, he said he “argued once again how important it is that what we have officially requested at the allied level that anti-drone capabilities recently ordered by the Ministry of Defense will be delivered,” Miruţă said in a Facebook post.
He specified that it is a Geran 2 drone. It is an Iranian-designed one-way attack drone also referred to as a kamikaze drone or suicide drone.
The drone was tracked on the newly installed radar in the Galati area, after another incident two weeks ago.
“We need more ground air defense systems…. fFor 5 months, since I have been minister, the endowment of the Army has been my number one priority and …. Now, for the first time we have SAFE 8 anti-drone defense systems,” the minister stressed.
He said beefed up security measures on NATO’s eastern flank will be announced in the coming hours.
