Romania shoots down drone breaching its airspace - defence ministry

BUCHAREST, Aug 16 - A Spanish F-18 fighter jet pilot on a NATO air policing mission shot down a drone illegally breaching Romanian national airspace, the fourth unmanned aircraft the country has shot down this year, Romania's defence ministry said on Sunday.

The NATO state shares a 614-km (382-mile) land border with Ukraine and has seen Russian drones repeatedly breach its airspace over the last four years, as well as mines floating in the Black Sea across key trade and energy routes.

The ministry did not specify the origin of the drone, saying its radars detected it entering the country from neighbouring Moldova, some 24 km (15 miles) north of the southeastern Romanian city of Galati.

The F-18 jet "made radar contact with the target and received permission to engage it," the ministry said in a statement. "The drone was shot down safely at 05:01 am."

The ministry said the fragments appeared to have fallen in an uninhabited area between two villages.

In July, Romanian F-16 fighter jet pilots shot down three Russian drones breaching national airspace for the first time after dozens of such incursions in the more than four years of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

Earlier in the year, a Russian drone crashed into an apartment block in the city of Galati during an overnight attack on neighbouring Ukraine, injuring two people. REUTERS