NATO member summons Russian envoy over ‘drone fragments’
The Romanian Foreign Ministry summoned the Russian charge d’affaires on Thursday, after accusing Moscow of flying a military drone into its airspace. Romanian officials earlier said that pieces of a UAV had been found in the eastern part of the country.
The diplomat was summoned in connection with the “fragments of a drone used by the Russian Armed Forces in the attacks on Ukrainian port infrastructure,” the Foreign Ministry said.
According to the Romanian Defense Ministry, pieces of a Geran-2 kamikaze drone were discovered on Wednesday near the village of Plauru in eastern Tulcea County.
Romanian authorities “conveyed a firm protest and condemned the repeated attacks by the Russian forces on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure,” it added.
Although NATO accused Moscow of “irresponsible and potentially dangerous” activities, it said there was no evidence of an “intentional attack by Russia against allied territory.”
Moscow has not commented on the allegations. The Russian Defense Ministry said on Wednesday that its forces had carried out strikes on Ukrainian seaborne drones docked in an unspecified location. Evgeny Poddubny, a war correspondent for the state-run Russia-1 TV channel, reported strikes on a shipyard and a fuel depot in the Ukrainian port of Izmail, located near the Romanian border.
Moscow denies targeting civilians and insists that its strikes are only carried out against military targets. The Russian Ministry of Defense previously said Ukrainian port infrastructure has been used to launch kamikaze naval drones, including vessels that have attacked the Crimean Bridge.
On Wednesday, the Turkish Navy intercepted an unmanned vessel similar to those used by Ukraine that was drifting in the Black Sea near Istanbul. The Turkish authorities have also recovered several floating mines since the fighting between Russia and Ukraine broke out in February 2022.
In November 2022, a missile hit Polish territory near the Ukrainian border, killing two people. Although Kiev quickly claimed that the missile had been fired by Russia, the Polish authorities later determined that the projectile was likely a Ukrainian anti-air missile that had veered off course.
