TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - For Ukrainians, Russia's air war has been a bitter, bloody reality for years. People in Ukraine are being killed every day by missiles, bombs, and drones. But the country's central and southeastern European neighbors have also found themselves affected, albeit on a smaller scale: Missiles and drones sometimes invade their air space, and occasionally even crash on their territory.
Now the Russian drone war is coming dangerously close to two of Ukraine's neighbors: Romania and the Republic of Moldova, where drone incidents are now an almost daily occurrence. The drones often explode, leaving people injured, and there have also been recent attacks on Ukrainian checkpoints at the Moldovan and Romanian borders.
The attacks have now escalated to such a degree that many observers believe they can no longer be considered unintentional. They suspect the Kremlin is deliberately trying to bring the war to Ukraine's neighbors.
The latest drone incursion and crash on Tuesday caused a furore as it prevented a plane with the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on board from taking off in the Moldovan capital Chisinau. A Russian Geran drone, which can fly as fast as 500 kilometers per hour (311 mph), took off in Crimea, then flew through Ukrainian airspace and eventually crashed in a sunflower field near the Moldovan city of Riscani.
The drone also flew over Romania, where two fighter jets were scrambled from NATO's Kogalniceanu airbase near the Black Sea port of Constanta, though it remains unclear why they did not shoot down the drone, as they had on other occasions.
More and more incidents in Moldova and Romania
The most serious aspect of the incident was that it showed how limited Moldovan air defense is in its ability to protect the country's air space. The drones were detected and tracked by air traffic control, but it was not possible to shoot them down. According to publicly available information, the country possesses only a small number of Polish Piorun anti-aircraft missiles, and these are only able to protect certain specific targets.
There have been around three dozen drone incidents in Romania and Moldova since the beginning of August this year. The majority were airspace violations, but there have also been crashes and explosions, while debris has also been found. In Romania, several drones have also been shot down. According to official data, 17 drones crashed in August in Moldova alone – as many as in all of 2025.
Deaths at border crossings
There was also a drone strike on the Starokozache border crossing between Ukraine and southeastern Moldova on the night of September 8. The crossing, situated around a kilometer from Moldovan territory, and was damaged in the attack. Two people were killed and two others wounded, one of them a Moldovan citizen.
The Moldovan leadership has strongly condemned the drone attack. President Maia Sandu said on Wednesday that Russia's war had arrived at the Moldovan border.
"It is hard to understand, given this reality, that there are still voices who try to convince Moldovans that Russia is not the aggressor, or that the war in our part of the world has nothing to do with us," Sandu said.
The president of the Moldovan parliament, Igor Grosu, wrote on Facebook that these were incidents "we can no longer view as something remote." The threat from Russia, Grosu said, was not a "specter," and not propaganda: "It is a daily reality."
Moldova's Defense Minister Anatolie Nosatii said that the deaths of Moldovan citizens could no longer be ruled out in future.
Vladimir Bolea, the minister of infrastructure, warned that Giurgiulesti, Moldova's port on the Danube, could become a target after the Russian Foreign Ministry accused Romania and Moldova of using the port as a "transit hub" for arms shipments.
'Planned operation' by Russia?
Moldovan military and security expert Rosian Vasiloi, a former head of the Moldovan border police, wrote on Facebook in response to Tuesday's drone crash in Moldova: "This is a planned operation by the aggressor state."
He also referred to the drone's peculiar flight path: After flying from Ukraine over Moldova into Romania, it made an about-turn and flew back to Moldova.
Vasiloi concluded: "We can no longer view our airspace as separate from Ukraine's and Romania's. Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova, and Romania already form an interconnected operational area as far as air threats and their impact on regional connectivity are concerned."
The Romanian leadership has not yet reacted to the latest incidents. But in July, the Romanian government made a political and military change of course: After a long period of restraint, it started to shoot down drones in Romanian airspace.
Former Romanian General Virgil Balaceanu, a regular analyst in the country's media, has urged Romania's leaders to accelerate the enhancement of Romanian air defenses. Balaceanu also believes that the drone incident on Tuesday was a deliberate maneuver.
Following this latest incident, the US Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a leading public think tank for analysis of Russia's war against Ukraine, wrote that while there was no evidence that the airspace violations were intentional, it could be said that Russia benefited from such actions.
In particular, it wrote, the incursions using Russia's latest, extremely fast Geran drone model "aim to further test NATO and Moldovan defenses and the response of the entire NATO alliance."
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