NATO Scrambles Four Fighter Jets As Drones Breach Territory

Romania has said it has had to scramble fighter jets after drones breached its airspace for the second time in two days.

There is growing concern about drones involved in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine landing in NATO territory, with the majority of incidents occurring in Romania, often close to Ukrainian Danube River ports which are Russian targets.

Without mentioning Russia, Romania’s Defense Ministry said on Saturday that it had deployed two F-16 jets and two Spanish F-18s after a drone had been detected inland in the southeastern county of Constanta.

The drone crossed into Romanian airspace at around 4 a.m. local time in the Gura Portiţei area but the combat aircraft did not have visual contact with the target at any point, and the radar signal was lost half an hour later, south of Cogealac, News.ro reported, according to a translation.

The object got 11 miles into Romanian national territory during which time “the combat aircraft did not have visual contact with it at any point.”

The air alert ended at 5.10 a.m. and the combat aircraft returned to base. An investigation is underway and NATO allies have been informed, according to the report.

Only the previous day, army radars in the NATO member detected a small flying object which was probably a drone, which was heading for Constanta before losing its signal.

Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said that the Defense Ministry was looking into whether there had been a “cyber challenge” because pilots “did not did not have visual contact with the drone,” Reuters reported.

There is no evidence as yet that the devices were Russian and Newsweek has contacted NATO and the Russian Defense Ministry for comment.

However, last month, countries in the Bucharest 9 group of countries consisting of NATO’s eastern members, called for a “collective answer” by the alliance to the growing threat posed by drones landing in their territory.

NATO’s Article 5 states an attack on one member is an attack on all, although there are no direct accusations that Russia was deliberately targeting the alliance with drones.

However, the bloc called for overall Integrated Air and Missile Defense and a boost in European air and missile defense capabilities as well as the alliance’s eastern flank.

Independent Russian outlet Verstka reported in September that debris from missiles and drones had landed in NATO members on 20 occasions, the majority of them in Romania. The other incidents occurred in Bulgaria, Poland, Latvia and Croatia.

Members of NATO’s eastern flank have accused Moscow of “hybrid attacks” amid heightened security tensions due to the war in Ukraine.