The Romanian Ministry of Defense announced that its radar surveillance system detected an aerial target near the border with Ukraine along the Danube River this afternoon, Agerpres reported, quoted by BTA.
The target was detected at 15:17 local (and Bulgarian) time, and in response three minutes later two F-18 fighter jets of the Spanish Air Force took off from the Romanian base “Mihail Cogalnicanu“ to monitor the situation.
A warning was also issued to the population in the northern part of Tulcea County.
According to the Ministry The target entered Romanian airspace about 3.5 km from the village of Kilia Veche and left towards Ukraine 12 minutes later.
This is the third incident of violation of Romanian airspace today. Romania scrambled fighter jets in response to a group of five air targets detected at 1:27 a.m. in the Izmail region. Shortly after 9 a.m., fighter jets were dispatched to track an air target in the northern part of Tulcea County.
Romanian Air Force F-16 fighter pilots shot down three drones that entered the country's airspace on July 24, 25 and 26, and the Russian ambassador was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he was shown fragments of a drone with inscriptions in Russian. Another employee of the Russian Federation's mission in Bucharest was declared persona non grata in Romania.
At the same time, Moscow said that Romania's claims that Russian drones had violated its airspace were "unfounded".
In an interview with Romanian TV channel Digi 24 a few days ago, Mykhailo Podoliak, who is the main advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, commented that Russia is purposefully sending drones into Romanian airspace.