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[INTERNATIONAL] · Romania, Italy · 100 sources

Romania shoots down two drones in its airspace within 24 hours

Romania’s Air Force intercepted a foreign drone on 24 July, marking the first time a Romanian fighter jet shot down an intruding UAV since Russia’s full‑scale invasion of Ukraine began. An F‑16 launched an air‑to‑air missile and destroyed the target over unpopulated land near the village of Padina in Buzău County. Two Italian Eurofighter Typhoons, operating under NATO’s air‑policing mission, also scrambled but the Romanian jet delivered the decisive strike.

A day later, on 25 July, a second unmanned aircraft entered Romanian airspace near the Danube Delta, about 10 km west of Sfântu Gheorghe. Radar detected the drone at 08:22 a.m., and two Romanian F‑16s were scrambled, shooting it down at 08:30 a.m. over sparsely populated terrain. The authorities issued RO‑Alert warnings for the affected districts. No casualties or damage were reported. The first drone was identified as a Shahed‑type, suspected to be Russian; the origin of the second was not immediately confirmed.

These incidents underscore the heightened air‑security challenges along Romania’s 600‑km border with Ukraine and the NATO alliance’s rapid response capability.

Sources

Un aereo rumeno abbatte un drone [sadefenza.blogspot.com]
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