Romania has shot down a drone over the Black Sea for the third consecutive day, prompting Bucharest to summon Russia's ambassador and deliver some of its sharpest condemnations yet of what officials describe as deliberate violations of NATO and EU airspace. A Romanian F-16 fighter jet intercepted and destroyed the unmanned aircraft on Sunday, just five minutes after it entered Romanian airspace, Defence Minister Radu Miruta announced. The incident occurred near Sulina, a town at the mouth of the Danube river, which forms the border between Romania and Ukraine.
Friday's shootdown — the first time Romania had ever brought down a drone breaching its airspace — marked a turning point after years of incursions that the country had not actively countered. An investigation confirmed that the Friday drone was a Shahed-type kamikaze drone, the model Russia uses extensively in its attacks on Ukraine. President Nicusor Dan described it as "a Shahed model, used by the Russian Federation in its war of aggression against Ukraine." Investigations into the Saturday and Sunday drones were still ongoing. A senior NATO military spokesperson said the drone "appears to be of Russian origin," while Moscow made no immediate public comment on any of the three incidents.
Foreign Minister Oana Toiu announced the summoning of the Russian ambassador in response to what she called "repeated violations," while President Dan stated that it was "unacceptable and intolerable for the Russian Federation to continue violating Romania's airspace, which is also the airspace of NATO and the European Union." Romania, a NATO and EU member state on the Black Sea's western coast, shares a border with Ukraine and has experienced frequent drone incursions since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022. Until this weekend, however, it had not shot down any. A law permitting the interception of drones breaching Romanian airspace was adopted by parliament in 2025.
The escalation comes against a backdrop of rising tensions along the Black Sea. Romania's army chief of staff noted that Russian strikes around the Ukrainian port of Odesa have intensified ahead of the harvest season, putting pressure on critical energy and trade routes. Previous incidents have had direct consequences for Romanian civilians: a drone struck an apartment building in the border city of Galați in May, wounding two people, and a Ukrainian naval drone exploded in the Black Sea port of Constanța weeks later without causing casualties — Ukraine has said its sea drones were redirected by Russian electronic warfare.
Analysts and officials have raised the possibility that some incursions may be deliberate tests of NATO's resolve rather than purely accidental spillovers from the conflict. The weekend's events suggest Romania has drawn a clear new line, and the NATO alliance is watching closely: the shootdowns come, a NATO spokesperson noted, as Romania and other member states "actively acquire ground-based interceptors" to strengthen their air defences.