Two suspected drones in as many days have breached Romanian national airspace — igniting concerns of a “cyber challenge,” the defense ministry said Saturday.
Romania’s army radars detected the first small flying object headed for the coastal city of Constanta Thursday night before losing the signal, Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said.
Fighter jets did not see the likely drone — prompting the defense ministry to investigate the possibility of a “cyber challenge, because pilots did not have visual contact with the drone,” Ciolauc said.
A second apparent drone was detected in the same vicinity the following night.
Romania once again scrambled two F-16 fighter jets and two Spanish F-18s, which are carrying out air policing missions in the country for the rest of the year — but the pilots yet again could not locate it.
Residents of Constanta were urged to take cover.
Romanian officials did not say whether they believe the suspected drones were Russian or Ukrainian, but the NATO state has seen Kremlin drone fragments fall onto its territory repeatedly over the past year.
Romanian President Klaus Iohannis warned that confirmation of the discovered parts belonging to a Russian unmanned aircraft would be “completely inadmissible and a serious violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Romania, a NATO allied state.”
The airspace breach comes just days after Romania admitted it had “categorically” lied about pieces of a Russian drone falling into the eastern Tulcea County on the shores of the Danube River, which separates Romania from neighboring Ukraine.
With Post Wires
