NATO fighter jet shoots down drone in Romania near border with Ukraine

On Sunday, Romania's defense ministry announced that a NATO fighter jet had shot down a drone that had unlawfully entered its airspace near the border with Ukraine and Moldova. The drone had reportedly entered the Romanian airspace from Moldova and was intercepted by a Spanish F-18 jet performing duties as part of NATO in the early hours of Sunday.

The ministry further revealed that debris from the drone had fallen in an uninhabited area close to the border with Ukraine. This interception is the most recent in a series of recurrent incidents involving drones straying into the borders of Ukraine's neighboring countries, which authorities have attributed to electronic interference as part of the ongoing conflict with Russia.

Some of these drones have been identified as Ukrainian and have been reportedly hijacked by Russian forces. The Romanian authorities have found drone fragments on their soil multiple times since 2023, following Russian attacks on Ukrainian ports along the Danube River, which lie just across the Romanian border. Last week, Ukraine denied allegations of targeting Bulgaria after a drone entered its airspace on Saturday and exploded near an international gas pipeline shortly after crossing the Romanian border.

In a similar incident last month, Romania had shot down a drone for the first time since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, after it entered the country's airspace approximately 60 miles from Bucharest. In June, Latvia's military reported that two NATO fighter jets had shot down a drone that had entered Latvia's airspace. Ukrainian drones have reportedly crashed in all three Baltic states, which share borders with Russia, with officials attributing the inadvertent incursions to Russian electronic warfare.