Russian drone strikes Romanian apartment building, Romania says

A Russian drone struck an apartment building in NATO-member Romania, its defense ministry said early Friday morning local time, wounding two people. 

“During the night of May 28-29, the Russian Federation resumed drone attacks on civilian and infrastructure targets in Ukraine, near the river border with Romania,” the Romanian defense ministry said.

“One of these drones entered Romanian airspace, was tracked by radar as far as the southern part of the city of Galati, and crashed onto the roof of an apartment building, with the impact triggering a fire,” it said. Two F-16 fighter jets were scrambled after the drones were detected in Romanian airspace.  

Local emergency services said two people with abrasions required medical treatment, and noted that the fire was extinguished.   

A nationwide air raid alert had also been issued in neighboring Ukraine overnight in anticipation of Russian strikes, though it was lifted in the morning.      

Drone incursions have been detected dozens of times since the start of the Russian offensive against Ukraine in 2022, but the latest incident was the first time one had hit a residential building. 

Last September, Romania reported that its airspace was breached by a drone during a Russian attack on neighboring Ukraine. The country also scrambled two F-16 fighter jets at the time.

That same month, Poland reported that it shot down Russian drones in its own airspace. 

NATO-member states bordering Ukraine or Russia, including Romania, Latvia, Estonia and Poland, are increasingly exposed to incursions into their territory by drones from both warring sides.

Latvia, which borders Russia, appointed a new government on Thursday, two weeks after the collapse of the previous administration due to a row over stray Ukrainian drone incursions, which exposed the weaknesses of the country’s air defenses.

The former Latvian prime minister had accused her defense minister of not deploying anti-drone defenses fast enough to parry two wayward Ukraine attack drones, which are thought to have been knocked off course by Russian jamming.

The drones caused minimal damage but sparked widespread concern in the former Soviet republic, which is now a member of NATO and the European Union.