Russian Drone Breaches Romanian Airspace, Prompting 'F-16' Fighters

The Romanian Ministry of Defense announced on Saturday that it had sent two 'F-16' fighter jets to intercept a drone that breached the country's airspace during a Russian attack targeting Ukrainian infrastructure near the shared border.

Authorities urged residents of Tulcea County in the southeast of the country, adjacent to the Danube River and Ukraine, to take shelter, confirming that the drone 'did not fly over populated areas and did not pose a direct threat to them'.

The ministry clarified that the two fighter jets tracked the drone until it disappeared from radar screens 20 kilometers southwest of the border village of Chilia Veche.

Romania, a member of the European Union and NATO, shares a 650-kilometer border with Ukraine and has repeatedly witnessed debris from Russian drones landing on its territory since the beginning of the war.

This incident comes just days after Poland shot down Russian drones that violated its airspace, marking the first direct use of force by a NATO member state since the outbreak of the war. These developments prompted Warsaw to deploy fighter jets and close an airport in the city of Lublin in the eastern part of the country.