Bucharest: A Russian drone entered Romanian airspace and crashed into a residential apartment building, sparking a fire and injuring two people, Romania’s National Defence Ministry announced on Friday.
According to the ministry, the injured individuals were taken to the Galati County Emergency Clinical Hospital.
It said that during the night from Thursday to Friday, Russia resumed drone attacks against targets in Ukraine, in the vicinity of Romania’s river border.
A drone entered Romanian airspace and was tracked by radar systems to the southern area of Galati municipality, where it crashed onto the roof of a residential apartment building and caused a fire, the ministry said.
Specialised teams from the General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations and other Ministry of Internal Affairs structures, the Romanian Intelligence Service and the Romanian Police are operating at the scene, it said, adding that the National Military Command Centre had notified the General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations to implement public alert measures.
According to Romanian media, dozens of residents were evacuated.
Earlier this month, several drones entered Latvian airspace from Russia with two of them crashing into an oil storage facility in Rezekne and damaging one empty oil tank, reports cited.
On May 21, the Latvian armed forces said at least one foreign drone entered the country’s airspace, the latest in a series of drone incursions reported across the Baltic States in recent months.
Authorities issued air alerts in several eastern Latvian regions, while NATO fighter jets participating in the Baltic Air Policing mission were scrambled in response. The alert was lifted later in the day.
The incident came days after Estonia said a NATO fighter jet had shot down a drone over its territory, while Lithuania reported that a military drone carrying explosives had crashed after entering its airspace. On May 7, two drones crashed into an oil storage facility in Latvia’s Rezekne.
Baltic authorities believe many of the drones are Ukrainian aircraft intended for strikes on Russian targets that veered off course into neighbouring countries’ airspace.
(IANS)
