Drone shot down after breaching Romanian airspace

The Romanian Ministry of Defense announced on Sunday that a Spanish pilot flying an F-18 fighter jet on an air policing mission under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Romania shot down a drone that had illegally violated Romanian airspace. This marks the fourth drone shot down in the country this year.

As a NATO member state, Romania shares a 614-kilometer land border with Ukraine. Over the past four years, it has experienced repeated airspace violations by Russian drones, as well as the presence of floating mines in the Black Sea, which threaten major commercial and energy shipping routes.