Russian kamikaze drone on Wednesday flew into NATO air space and detonated near a Romanian village, Ukrainian news reports said, but official Bucharest said the fact of the strike wasn’t confirmed and that they would check.
The Iran-manufactured Shahed kamikaze UAV reportedly struck and blew up in the vicinity of the Danube River shoreside hamlet of Plaura, in southeastern Romania.
Ukrainian social media video recorded in the river port city of Izmail, opposite Plaura, showed an orange flash lighting up the night horizon and a booming blast on the Romanian side of the river. Flames and smoke reaching hundreds of meters into the sky were visible following the explosion. A Russian kamikaze drone strike against Izmail had been in progress at the time.
A Wednesday Ukrainian Air Force statement said Russian operators based in Crimea launched the Kremlin’s latest drone raid shortly after midnight.
Civilian air defense networks closely tracking the incoming strike reported almost all the explosives-toting UAVs appeared to be flying in two waves east of and parallel to the Danube River.
Anti-aircraft gunners, missile operators and tactical jamming teams in engagements across the country knocked down 17 Shahed kamikaze drones, six reconnaissance drones and two loitering strike drones, the official Kyiv statement said. “Most” of the kills were, per that report, in the airspace above the southwestern Odesa region, where the Danube separates Ukraine and Romania.
