A drone crashed into an apartment building in Romania and exploded, injuring two people after Russia attacked a nearby Ukrainian port, the Romanian Defense Ministry said Friday.
“On the night of May 28-29, the Russian Federation resumed drone attacks on civilian and infrastructure targets in Ukraine near the river border with Romania,” the ministry said in a statement.
According to CNN affiliate Antenna 3CNN, the drone crashed into the roof of a building in Galatsy, near the border with Ukraine.
“The drone entered the national airspace at 1:54 a.m. and headed towards the eastern part of the city of Galați, but it was lost on radar south of Galați,” ministry spokesperson Col. Christian Popovic told Antenna 3CNN.
As response teams and investigators toured the crash scene Friday morning, video footage showed the roof of the apartment building was visibly scorched.
Galati is located in the southeastern tip of Romania, on the border with Ukraine. Just across the border is Izmail, Ukraine’s largest port on the Danube River and a frequent target of Russian attacks.
Around the same time that the drone crashed into the Galasy apartment, Ukrainian authorities announced that the Izmail port area had come under Russian drone attack.
Romanian radar detected the drone in Romanian airspace, the ministry said in a statement. Two F-16 aircraft were deployed and pilots were authorized to engage targets during the alert period.
Romania is a member of both NATO and the European Union.
Tensions with Russia are rising as member states of NATO, the transatlantic defense pact in which the United States participates that adopts the principle that an attack on one is an attack on all, are increasingly responding to Russian drones and missiles that enter their airspace or land on their territory.
Romania’s Defense Ministry announced Friday that Russian drones have violated Romania’s airspace 28 times since Russia crossed the Danube and began attacking Kiev’s port, according to Reuters.
In September 2025, NATO jets shot down multiple Russian drones that violated Polish airspace during attacks on neighboring Ukraine. The military alliance accused Russia of “absolutely dangerous” actions that have escalated tensions to a new level.
Days after the incident, Romania accused Moscow of “irresponsible actions”, claiming that a Russian drone had violated Romania’s airspace during the attack on Ukraine, prompting Bucharest to scramble fighter jets.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
