Nato member Romania says Russian drone violated its airspace

A Russian drone violated Romania’s airspace during night-time attacks on neighbouring Ukraine, the Nato member reported on Sunday, urging Moscow to stop what it described as an escalation.

The incident happened as Russia carried out attacks on “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the River Danube in Ukraine, Romania’s Ministry of National Defence said.

Romania deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace, and Nato allies were kept informed, the ministry said.

Romanian emergency authorities also issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions.

Preliminary data indicates there may be an “impact zone” in an uninhabited area near the Romanian village of Periprava, the ministry said. It added that an investigation is under way.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Romania has confirmed drone fragments on its territory on several occasions and as recently as July this year.

The Romanian Defence Ministry strongly condemned the Russian attacks on Ukraine, calling them “unjustified and in serious contradiction with the norms of international law”.

Mircea Geoana, Nato’s outgoing deputy secretary-general and Romania’s former top diplomat, said the military alliance also condemned Russia’s violation of Romanian airspace.

“While we have no information indicating an intentional attack by Russia against Allies, these acts are irresponsible and potentially dangerous,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Later on Sunday, Latvia’s defence minister Andris Spruds said that a Russian drone fell the day before near the town of Rezekne, and had likely strayed into Latvia from neighbouring Belarus.

Rezekne, home to over 25,000 people, lies 34 miles west of Russia and around 47 miles from Belarus, whose leader is an ally of the Kremlin.

Meanwhile, in Ukraine, two civilians were killed and four others, including two children, injured in a night-time Russian air strike on the northern city of Sumy, the regional military administration reported.

In the Kharkiv region further east, overnight shelling killed two elderly women, according to local governor Oleh Syniehubov.

During the night, Ukrainian air defences shot down one of four cruise missiles and 15 of 23 Iranian-made Shahed drones launched by Russia, Ukraine’s air force reported.

It added that none of the cruise missiles had hit targets.

Later on Sunday, three women were killed when Russian forces shelled a village in the eastern Donetsk region, governor Vadym Filashkin reported on the Telegram messaging app.

Elsewhere in the province, rescue teams pulled the bodies of two men from the rubble of a hotel destroyed on Saturday evening in a Russian air strike, according to Ukraine’s state emergency service.

That same day, the death toll from a massive Russian missile strike on Tuesday that blasted a military academy and nearby hospital in the eastern city of Poltava rose to 58, regional governor Filip Pronin reported. More than 320 other people were injured.

Since it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, the Russian military has repeatedly used missiles to smash civilian targets, sometimes killing scores of people in a single attack.

Poltava is about 200 miles (350km) south-east of Kyiv, on the main highway and rail route between Kyiv and Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, which is close to the Russian border.

The attack happened as Ukrainian forces sought to carve out their holdings in Russia’s Kursk border region after a surprise incursion that began on August 6, as the Russian army hacks its way deeper into eastern Ukraine.

In Ukraine’s industrial east, Russian forces continued their months-long grinding push towards the city of Pokrovsk, and also ramped up attacks near the town of Kurakhove further south, Ukraine’s General Staff said.

Russian forces continued their months-long grinding push towards the city of Pokrovsk, and also ramped up attacks near the town of Kurakhove further south, Ukraine’s General Staff reported.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Sunday that its troops had taken Novohrodivka, a small town some 11 miles (19km) south-east of Pokrovsk.

An update published on Saturday evening by DeepState, a Ukrainian battlefield analysis site, said Russian forces had “advanced” in Novohrodivka and captured Nevelske, a village in the south-east of the Pokrovsk district.

Pokrovsk, which had a pre-war population of about 60,000, is one of Ukraine’s main defensive strongholds and a key logistics hub in the Donetsk region.

Its capture would compromise Ukraine’s defence and supply routes, and bring Russia closer to its stated aim of capturing the entire Donetsk region.