Bucharest, Romania:
Parts of what could have been a Russian drone fell on Romanian territory, Romanian Defense Minister Angel Tilvar said Wednesday, two days after Ukraine said Russian drones had been detonated on the NATO member’s land.
“I confirm that pieces have been found that may be elements of a drone,” Angel Tilvar told Antenna 3 broadcaster CNN.
He added that the area had not been evacuated because there were no indications that the parts posed a threat. He said the pieces would be analyzed to confirm their origin.
Kiev had said on Monday that drones had been detonated in Romania during a nighttime Russian airstrike on a Ukrainian port across the Danube.
The ministries of defense and foreign affairs, along with President Iohannis Klaus, previously denied reports of the drones detonating on Romanian territory and said Russian attacks posed no direct threat to Romanian territory.
Tilvar repeated the message on Wednesday that there is no immediate threat.
He told Agerpres that it was possible that the drone did not explode on impact, but simply fell or that pieces landed on Romanian territory.
“(That) doesn’t make us happy, (…) but I don’t think we can talk about an attack and, as I said before, I think we need to know how to distinguish between an act of aggression and an incident,” Agerpres quoted him as saying.
A ministry spokesman said search teams had been in the area for several days as the minister and other defense officials spoke with residents.
Moscow has been conducting long-range airstrikes against targets in Ukraine since the invasion began last year.
Since July, when Moscow canceled an agreement that lifted a de facto Russian blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, it has repeatedly hit Ukrainian river ports across the Danube from Romania.
Ukrainian president’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak said on Monday that the incident has highlighted the need to increase the supply of modern air defense and long-range weapons to deprive Russia of the ability to launch drones and missiles at Ukraine.
Ukraine has made several reports during the war of suspected Russian weapons flying or crashing over neighboring countries, including NATO members who have signed a mutual defense agreement.
In the most dramatic incident in Poland, two people were killed by a rocket that fell near the border last November; Poland and NATO allies later said it was a failed Ukrainian air defense missile.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published through a syndicated feed.)