Russian drones have violated Romania’s airspace 11 times since Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022, the government said, as public fears mount that Romania could be the target of Russian aggression.
The Romanian defense ministry said in the same period there were more than 50 Russian drone attacks near Romania’s 650-kilometer border with Ukraine, with dozens of drone fragments falling on Romanian territory, in the eastern part of the country, a sparsely populated area.
The last drone incursion in Romanian airspace was on Saturday, which came just days after 19 Russian drones violated Polish territory, triggering the invocation of NATO’s Article 4.
Parliament passed a law in July allowing drones to be shot down, amid fierce opposition from Russia-friendly nationalists who have almost one-third of seats in Parliament.
“Since the beginning of the brutal aggression of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, there have been 52 attacks exclusively on the territory of Ukraine, near Romania’s borders, in which Russian drones were involved,” the defense ministry told FRONTUL, an international affairs program on the public broadcaster, TVR.
“Of these, in 38 of the situations, fragments of drones arrived on the territory of Romania, in the Danube Delta area, and in 11 situations Russian drones entered Romania’s airspace,” the statement said.
On Saturday, a Russian drone violated Romania’s airspace, penetrating about 10 kilometers. The drone circled around the area for almost an hour, then headed towards Ukraine, where it crashed. Romanian scrambled two F-16s but did not shoot it down after assessing the situation.
Fears have increased recently about the possibility of Russia attacking the country, a NATO and EU member. Almost 50% said they thought it was possible, while 43% said were skeptical about such a scenario, according to a poll released Tuesday. The opinion poll carried out by the Avangarde institute showed that more than half surveyed agreed with Romania increasing its defense spending to 5% as requested by NATO.
Romania summons Russia ambassador after Russian drone incursion
