Romania’s radar systems detected two separate signals that may have come from drones violating national and NATO airspace, but the dispatched F-16 fighter jets did not spot them before they disappeared, the Romanian Ministry of Defence said late on Wednesday evening, the 23rd of October, saying it was the third such incident in less than a week, reports Reuters.
The two signals were picked up less than an hour apart by radars flying over the south-eastern counties of Constanta and Tulcea, the latter of which borders Ukraine across the Danube River.
Two F-16 fighter jets were dispatched to monitor the small flying objects – most likely two different drones – from the air, but the planes failed to visually identify any of them before the radars lost the signal, the ministry said in a statement.
On two separate days last week, radar systems detected two drones violating Romanian airspace, but the fighters did not see them and the crash sites were not identified.
Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu told reporters that these incidents could have been examples of cyber-interference.
The European Union and NATO country, which shares a 650-km border with Ukraine, has had Russian drone debris fall on its territory several times over the past year as Moscow has attacked Ukrainian port infrastructure.
While most of these fragments fell in Romania after being destroyed by Ukrainian air defences, fears of escalation were heightened in September when Russian drones violated both Romanian and Latvian airspace.