NATO Jet Shoots Down Drone Over Romanian Airspace

An F-18 fighter jet on a NATO air policing mission along the eastern flank shot down ​a drone that breached Romanian airspace on Sunday, Romania’s defense ministry said.The Ministry of National Defense said in an Aug. 16 statement that at 4:44 a.m., military surveillance systems detected entrance of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) coming from Moldova—a landlocked country between Romania and Ukraine—approximately 15 miles north of the southeastern Romanian city of Galati.The statement said an F-18 belonging to the Spanish Air and Space Forces on a monitoring mission at the 57th Air Base Mihail Kogalniceanu had made radar contact with the craft and received approval to engage, shooting down the drone at 5:01 a.m.Drone debris was picked up in an unpopulated area between Baleni and Cudalbi, Galați County, the ministry said.The Romanian Ministry of National Defense did not specify the origin of the UAV.U.S. Army Colonel Martin O’Donnell, the spokesman for NATO’s military headquarters, said “the drone appears to be Russian.”“Additional details regarding Sunday’s incident remain under investigation,” he said.O’Donnell said that NATO is constantly on watch and prepared to defend allies from threats.Recent Drone IncursionsRomania shares a 382-mile land border with Ukraine, and in the four years since Russia invaded Ukraine, has seen other drones breach its airspace, and also mines in the Black Sea.Last week, the Romanian Naval Forces found two UAVs floating in the Black Sea in the country’s exclusive economic zone near a major offshore natural gas project, Neptun Deep.The Romanian Ministry of National Defense said in an Aug. 11 statement that two Gerbera model UAVs were destroyed in controlled detonations.While the ministry did not name the suspected origin of the drones, Gerberas are Russian-made.According to the U.S. Army’s Operational Environment Data Integration Network portal, the Gerbera is a decoy One-Way Attack Drone (OWAD), whose primary purpose is to increase the survivability of other OWADs by overwhelming Ukrainian air defense systems and drawing fire.In July, Romania said its F-16 jets had shot down a suspected Russian UAV after it breached NATO airspace, the third such incursion over three days. Moscow denied violating Romanian airspace.In another incident in May, a Russian drone hit an apartment building in southeastern Romania, injuring two people.Russian officials have said in relation to previous incidents that Bucharest has not provided evidence that the drones were of Russian origin.Russia and Ukraine have been increasing aerial assaults on each other, with eastern flank NATO member states seeing drones from both sides straying into their territories.Earlier this month, Bulgarian officials said a UAV, likely a decoy Maya drone, exploded ​near the village of Kardam, close to the border. They said this type of drone is used by Ukrainian forces, and that they believed the incursion was unintentional.NATO Air PolicingToiu Oana, Romania’s minister of foreign affairs, said in an Aug. 16 post on X that she thanked her Spanish counterparts for their aid in securing Romania and other NATO allies.“Last night, an F-18 aircraft of the Spanish Air and Space Forces, which was carrying out NATO Enhanced Air Policing missions from Mihail Kogălniceanu Air Base, intercepted and shot down, in coordination with the Romanian command center, under safe conditions, a drone that had entered Romania’s airspace,” she said.“The Spanish Air Force is on its fourth such mission in Romania, acting as a reliable Ally. The current Spanish mission represents an extended deployment, at the request of Romania and NATO to strengthen the Eastern Flank, following previous drone incidents.”NATO’s Enhanced Air Policing strategy is part of its Assurance Measures in 2014, following Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula.According to NATO, its members implemented these measures to demonstrate the security bloc’s “defensive nature” and to “deter Russia from aggression or the threat of aggression against NATO Allies.”Reuters contributed to this report.