Romania says it shot down second drone breaching its airspace

BUCHAREST — Romania said on Saturday that it had shot down a second drone breaching its airspace in as many days, over a sparsely populated area near its border with Ukraine, in a further sign of rising tensions along NATO's eastern flank.

President Nicusor Dan said on social media that the drone was intercepted at 8:30 am local time, about 10 kilometres west of Sfantu Gheorghe in the Danube Delta. The Defence Ministry said radar had detected the aircraft entering Romanian airspace at 8:22 am, prompting two F-16 fighter jets to be scrambled before it was brought down.

Authorities did not immediately identify the origin of Saturday's drone. Defence Minister Radu Miruta said the wreckage was being analysed, but that the pattern was consistent with previous confirmed flights by Russian drones.

The interception followed the downing of a first drone on Friday the first time the NATO member had destroyed an aircraft violating its airspace after dozens of previous incursions. Romanian prosecutors examining the fragments said that drone had been Russian.

Romania, which shares a roughly 650-kilometre land border with Ukraine, says Russian drones have breached its airspace around 30 times since Moscow began attacking Ukrainian ports across the Danube River following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In May, a Russian drone crashed into an apartment building in the town of Galati, injuring two people — the first time such a strike had hit a densely populated area in a NATO country during the war.

The Romanian parliament adopted a law in 2025 permitting the military to shoot down drones violating national airspace. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said this week that strengthening defence and deterrence along the bloc's eastern border remained a priority.

The army's chief of staff, General Gheorghita Vlad, said on Friday that Russian attacks around the Ukrainian port of Odesa had intensified ahead of the harvest season, adding pressure on key energy and trade routes in the Black Sea. There was no immediate comment from Moscow, which has previously denied deliberately targeting Romanian territory.