In the early hours of Wednesday, NATO jets were scrambled as a response to a series of drone operations by Russian forces targeting civilian and infrastructure sites in Ukraine, proximate to the Romanian border in Tulcea County.
The Ministry of National Defence of Romania issued a detailed account of the situation.
“On Wednesday, October 2nd, the Russian forces conducted a new series of drone attacks on the civilian and infrastructure targets in Ukraine, near the river border with Romania, in Tulcea County.
As a result of the detection of groups of drones that were heading towards the airspace of Ukraine, near the Romanian airspace, the National Military Command Center (nucleus) notified the General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations regarding the establishment of measures to alert the population of Tulcea and Galați Counties, RO-Alert messages being sent at 2:41 a.m.
In order to monitor the situation, two of the Spanish Air Force F-18 aircraft that are part of the enhanced Air Policing Combat Service took off, around 00.50, from the 57th Mihail Kogălniceanu Air Base.
Also, two Romanian Air Force F-16 aircraft took off around 02.40, from the 86th Borcea Air Base. The Spanish aircraft completed their mission around 03:00, while the Romanian Air Force’s ones, around 05:00. During this timeframe, Romania’s radar surveillance system did not detect the intrusion into the national airspace of the drones involved in the attack against the Ukrainian targets.”
This incident underscores the heightened alertness among NATO members in response to military activities in Ukraine.
