Romanian F-16s Shoot Down Two Drones Over Black Sea, Authorities Say

Miruta said the first drone entered Romanian airspace at 17:59 and was destroyed within two minutes, about 25 kilometres south-east of Sulina. He said the second entered the same area and was shot down at 18:05, five minutes after crossing into national airspace, about 20 kilometres east of the town.

According to a Defence Ministry press release cited by Euronews, two F-16s on air-policing missions were scrambled from the 86th Air Base at Borcea, near Fetești, after radar surveillance systems detected a number of aerial targets.

The official account is precise about where the interceptions happened and how quickly they unfolded, but not about who launched the drones or where they came from. In a region saturated with assumptions, that omission is not a small detail. It marks the line between a reported military action and a fuller claim about responsibility that Romanian authorities, at least in the description available here, did not make.

Foreign Minister Oana Toiu wrote on X that the Black Sea is a critical route for grain, energy resources and industrial commodities, and said NATO would discuss Black Sea “defence and deterrence” at an upcoming meeting. “The Black Sea will be safe again,” she added.

Euronews said Romania, on NATO’s eastern flank, has been dealing in recent months with a rise in drone-related incursions and incidents believed to be linked to Russia’s war in Ukraine. What is directly supported here is narrower and still significant: Romanian jets were scrambled after aerial targets were detected, and two drones that entered the country’s airspace were shot down near Sulina.