Romania scrambled fighter jets early on Tuesday after drones breached its territory near the Ukrainian border, the defence ministry confirmed.
One drone was reportedly still advancing deeper into the country. Two Eurofighters, part of German air-policing missions, were initially dispatched, tracking a drone in southeastern Tulcea county before it re-entered Ukraine.
The army later scrambled two Romanian F-16 fighter jets after radar showed a second airspace breach in the county of Galati. The planes tracked it moving inland towards the county of Vrancea, the ministry said.
Residents of all three counties were warned to take cover.
The EU and NATO member shares a 650-km (400-mile) land border with Ukraine and has had drones breach its airspace and fragments fall onto its territory repeatedly since Russia began attacking Kyiv’s ports across the Danube.
Tensions have mounted along Europe’s eastern flank in recent months after suspected Russian drones breached the airspace of several NATO states. Romania has legislation in place enabling it to shoot down drones during peacetime if lives or property are at risk, but has not yet made use of it.
It comes as European officials said on Monday that they were comforted by the outcome of discussions on U.S. peace proposals for Ukraine that they had viewed as tilted in Russia’s favor, but they didn’t disclose details of the weekend talks and warned of a long road to peace.
“The negotiations were a step forward, but there are still major issues which remain to be resolved,” Finnish President Alexander Stubb wrote on social platform X about Sunday’s meeting in Switzerland between U.S. and Ukrainian officials.
U.S. President Donald Trump suggested Monday that the process could be moving in the right direction.”Is it really possible that big progress is being made in Peace Talks between Russia and Ukraine??? Don’t believe it until you see it, but something good just may be happening,” he wrote in a post on the Truth Social platform.
The talks in Geneva covered a 28-point peace plan presented last week by the United States that triggered alarm in Kyiv and European capitals by heavily favoring Moscow’s demands and goals following its invasion of its neighbor nearly four years ago.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz welcomed the “interim result” of the talks, saying the U.S. proposal “has now been modified in significant parts.”
He cautioned, however: “It was possible to clear up some questions, but we also know that there won’t be peace in Ukraine overnight.”
