Drone fragments found in Romania prompt concerns

NATO country says Russia’s war violates airspace

BUCHAREST, Romania — Romanian authorities said Thursday they found a crater from a suspected drone that may have exploded on impact on its territory near the border with Ukraine, reviving concerns about possible spillover of Russia’s war in Ukraine onto a NATO member country.

The pre-dawn discovery of the crater 1.8 miles west of the village of Plauru, which sits across the Danube River from the Ukrainian port of Izmail, was made after the Romanian Defense Ministry said it detected a series of drones heading toward Ukrainian river ports.

The ministry said the drone possibly exploded on impact, but it was not immediately clear when or from where the drone was launched. An investigation was underway.

“Heinous Russian attacks on Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure had again serious consequences on Romania’s territory,” Romanian Foreign Minister Luminita Odobescu wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, adding that “new evidence of impact was found on Romania’s soil.”

“We call on Russia to stop these war crimes,” she said.

Romanian authorities have confirmed drone fragments on the country’s territory in recent weeks, and said the parts resembled those from drones used by the Russian army.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told the Associated Press on Thursday that the alliance has increased the number of aircraft monitoring Romania’s skies after the drone findings. But he said there are no indications the drone incidents were “deliberate attacks on NATO’s allies, but more a consequence of the unjustified attacks on Ukraine.”

Asked if any member countries had talked of activating official consultations under Article 4 of the NATO treaty, which is the process for when members are worried about their security or territorial integrity, Stoltenberg said that “so far, there hasn’t been any need for that.”

Romanian President Klaus Iohannis called the drone fragment discoveries “an absolutely unacceptable violation of the sovereign airspace of Romania, a NATO ally, with real risks to the security of Romanian citizens in the area.”

The recurring incidents over the past month have left some residents living near the border nervous that the war could spill into their country, and the village of Plauru erected prefabricated concrete shelters for residents last month.

Separately Thursday, the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region on the border with Ukraine said three people, including a child, were killed and two others injured overnight when drone debris fell on a private house, setting it on fire.

The drone was shot down by air defense systems, but the debris “effectively destroyed” two private houses on the outskirts of the city of Belgorod, the region’s capital, and damaged several more, Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

The Belgorod region has been a regular target of crossborder shelling and drone attacks.