BUCHAREST — Two Romanian F-16 pilots shot down two jet-powered attack drones over their country’s Black Sea waters on Saturday evening, as neighbouring Bulgaria presses NATO for jets to cover the same sea.
Radar had picked up a group of aerial targets about 120 kilometres east of Snake Island, heading southwest, according to Romania’s Ministry of National Defence. Two F-16s on air-policing duty left Borcea air base at 17:43 local time. The first target crossed into national airspace at 17:59 and fell at 18:01. The second crossed at 18:01 and fell at 18:05.
The ministry’s later update named the targets as jet-powered attack drones of the Geran family. It said radar had flagged aerial targets in Ukrainian airspace near the Romanian border on eight separate occasions in the previous week, and that on four of them unmanned aircraft briefly entered Romanian airspace. Several merchant ships have also been hit by drones in the Black Sea, it said, including in Romanian territorial waters.
The ministry’s two statements differ slightly on the second drone. By the timestamps in its first release, it spent four minutes in national airspace; the update says five.
The Kyiv Independent reported that the ministry did not specify which country the drones belonged to, and wrote separately that Geran drones are among the latest deployed by Russian forces in attacks on Ukraine. Defence Minister Radu Miruta put the two interceptions about 25 kilometres southeast and 20 kilometres east of Sulina, Euronews reported.
Saturday’s alerts began earlier. At 01:54 an RO-Alert message went to residents of northern Tulcea County after radar tracked a target over Ukraine, north of Plauru. Two Spanish F-18s on enhanced air-policing duty were scrambled from Mihail Kogalniceanu air base, and the ministry reported no entry into national airspace. The alert ended at 02:30. In September, a drone that breached Romanian airspace reportedly evaded two Spanish F-18s on the same enhanced air-policing duty before crashing in Moldova.
Foreign Minister Oana Toiu wrote on X that NATO would discuss Black Sea “defence and deterrence” at an upcoming meeting, and that “The Black Sea will be safe again,” Euronews also reported.
The record so far holds two kills four minutes apart, a one-minute gap between the ministry’s two statements on the second drone, and a country of origin the Kyiv Independent says the ministry did not specify.
