A Romanian F-16 fighter jet shot down a drone that had entered its airspace on Friday, authorities said, the first time the NATO member state has done so following dozens of such incursions.
Later that day, NATO Air Command confirmed that a drone was shot down by allied fighters under NATO command and control in Romanian airspace.
NATO said an investigation was ongoing and that the alliance is in close contact with Romanian authorities.
Airspace breaches on NATOโs eastern flank have fueled concerns that the allianceโs borders are at risk as war rages between Russia and Ukraine.
Drone infiltrates Romanian airspace
The Romanian armyโs chief of staff told a news conference that Bucharest had not yet identified the droneโs origin or purpose and that an investigation was underway.
However, Chief of Staff General Gheorghita Vlad said it appeared to be a Shahed โ the Iran-designed attack drones used by Russia against Ukraine.
โVisually, the pilots reported the drone looked to be a Shahed type,โ he said, adding it was too soon to draw conclusions.
Earlier in the day, an army source told Reuters: โThere is an ongoing investigation to determine the origin of the drone. But in this part of the world it is Russia that is the attacker.โ
Earlier, President Nicusor Dan wrote on social media platform X that a Romanian pilot had shot down the drone at about 11 a.m. after it entered the countryโs airspace.
โThe area was uninhabited, so the pilot was able to shoot without any risk. Currently, teams of the relevant institutions are investigating the area to come up with all the details about the incident,โ Dan wrote.
The Romanian Defense Ministry said the drone was shot down near the town of Padina in Buzau county in the east of the country.
It said two Romanian F-16 jets and two Italian Eurofighter Typhoons based in Romania had been scrambled in response to the incursion, adding the drone was first detected by radars at 9:30 a.m. around 20 km. east of Sulina on the Black Sea coast.
Fragments of the drone fell on a wheat field but caused no damage or injuries, the Buzau county prefect told reporters.
Romania, which shares a 650-km (400-mile) land border with Ukraine, has reported multiple breaches of its airspace by Russian drones since Moscow began attacking Ukrainian ports across the Danube River following its full-scale invasion in 2022.
General Vlad said Russian attacks against Ukraineโs Odesa region had increased ahead of the harvest season, further pressuring key energy and trade routes in the Black Sea.
In late May, a drone crashed into an apartment building in the town of Galati, near the Ukrainian border, injuring two people, the first time a strike had hit a densely populated area in a NATO country and caused injuries during the Ukraine war.
