AIBRIEF
Spanish F 18 on a NATO air policing mission brought down the unmanned aircraft near Galati on Sunday; Romania has now downed four drones this year.
A Spanish F-18 on a NATO air policing mission shot down a drone that had entered Romanian airspace from the direction of Moldova early Sunday, Romania's defense ministry said. It was the fourth such interception Romania has logged in 2026.
Romanian radars detected the drone roughly 24 km (15 miles) north of the southeastern city of Galati. The F-18 made radar contact, received clearance to engage, and shot the drone down at 05:01 local time; fragments fell in an uninhabited area between two villages, the ministry said in a statement carried by CNN.
NATO air policing is the Alliance's standing peacetime task of monitoring Allied airspace with quick-reaction alert jets, a routine posture rather than a combat sortie. Spain is one of several NATO members that rotate aircraft into the mission along the Eastern flank.
The ministry did not specify the origin of the latest drone; only the entry path from Moldova is on record. CNN labels the story developing.
In July, Romanian F-16 pilots shot down three Russian drones breaching national airspace for the first time, after dozens of incursions over more than four years of the war in Ukraine. Earlier in 2026, a Russian drone crashed into an apartment block in Galati during an overnight attack on neighboring Ukraine, injuring two people. Romania shares a 614-km (382-mile) land border with Ukraine and has been hit by stray munitions and Black Sea mines drifting across trade and energy routes.