Third Drone Shot Down in Three Days in Romanian Territory
by _tk_ on 7/26/2026, 12:00:42 PM
Comments
by: cbg0
As part of the SAFE EU financial instrument Romania is spending a lot of cash on defense measures for drones and other armament[1]. Currently still relying heavily on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flakpanzer_Gepard" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flakpanzer_Gepard</a> for anti-air as well as fighter jets with air-to-air missiles, as these recent drones were all brought down by F-16s.<p>Aside from strategic targets, a lot of the civilian infrastructure is quite vulnerable to drone attacks as there's a huge border to cover and definitely not enough anti-drone tech deployed. An apartment building was hit months ago with no casualties: <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/apartment-building-hit-by-drone-romanias-galati-close-ukraine-border-radio-says-2026-05-29/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/apartment-building-hit-...</a><p>[1] <a href="https://www.rheinmetall.com/en/media/news-watch/news/2026/06/2026-06-02-major-historic-contract-in-romania-worth-5-7-billion" rel="nofollow">https://www.rheinmetall.com/en/media/news-watch/news/2026/06...</a>
7/26/2026, 1:18:23 PM
by: walrus01
URL appears to go to home page of RO military, another URL is: <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20260726-romanian-jet-shoots-down-drone-entering-country-airspace-for-third-day-in-a-row" rel="nofollow">https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20260726-romanian-jet-sho...</a>
7/26/2026, 12:44:50 PM
by: comrade1234
With the heatwaves and drought in Europe it's probably not the best time to have flaming wreckage falling from the sky.
7/26/2026, 1:30:44 PM
by: an0malous
Why are these drones so easy to shoot down, but the ones invading airspaces over nuclear bases and other sensitive installations hundreds of times for months all over Europe and the east coast of the US were never shot down or tracked even once?
7/26/2026, 12:49:52 PM
by: Insanity
Given how poor their Ukrainian war is going, this is a strange move. I guess it’s mostly just posturing?
7/26/2026, 12:58:10 PM
by: petre
Time to expell some more Russian embassy staff.
7/26/2026, 1:33:46 PM
by: cmiles8
We seems scarily only one rogue actor or screw up from WW III in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.
7/26/2026, 12:44:15 PM
by: miohtama
Because Russian's war with Ukraine is unsustainable, something has to change for Putin for him to remain in power, and one option is an escalation with NATO.<p>Some other scenarios also explained in this good video<p><a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jDhYFSGkaAc&pp=iggCQAE%3D" rel="nofollow">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jDhYFSGkaAc&pp=iggCQAE%3D</a>
7/26/2026, 12:56:42 PM
by: sneak
AIUI Russia has been regularly intruding into Finnish airspace and has often penetrated the land border with Georgia.<p>It’s one of those “let’s see how much we can get away with” probes to try to establish a new status quo. I wonder how Russia would respond to NATO drones doing the same.
7/26/2026, 12:59:45 PM
by: esseph
Drones shot down in Romania, Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Finland, etc.<p>These are probes. Judging responses and response times.<p>Rumor is Polish GROM have been inside Russia for months.<p>Edit: See sources in my comment below. I bring receipts.
7/26/2026, 12:42:04 PM
by: dvduval
The big part that I didn’t see was whether this was a Russian drone or Ukrainian drone
7/26/2026, 12:44:16 PM
by: officialchicken
What does this have to do with startups?
7/26/2026, 1:08:41 PM