A Russian-made Geran-2 drone, a variant of the Iranian-designed Shahed attack drone widely used by Moscow in its war against Ukraine, struck a 10-storey residential apartment building in the eastern Romanian city of Galați early Friday, injuring two civilians and triggering renewed alarm across NATO’s eastern flank.
The strike marks the first confirmed instance since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 in which a Russian drone directly hit a civilian building and caused injuries on NATO territory.
Romanian authorities said the drone entered Romanian airspace shortly before impact and exploded after crashing into an upper level of the apartment block at approximately 01:52 local time. The blast ignited a fire that spread across several apartments before firefighters brought it under control.
Galați lies close to Romania’s border with Ukraine, roughly 10 to 18 kilometres from the Ukrainian Danube port city of Reni, an area repeatedly targeted by Russian drone and missile strikes aimed at disrupting Ukraine’s grain export infrastructure.
Romania’s Ministry of National Defence confirmed that F-16 fighter jets were scrambled after radar systems detected the drone approaching Romanian territory. Military officials said the aircraft tracked the drone but did not engage it before impact.
According to defence authorities, the drone spent only about four minutes in Romanian airspace while flying at low altitude and relatively slow speed, limiting the response window. Officials also cited concerns over debris falling into populated areas, legal constraints governing peacetime interception, and risks to neighbouring airspace near the Moldovan and Ukrainian borders.
Romanian President Nicușor Dan described the incident as “the most serious security event affecting Romanian territory since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.”
“This attack demonstrates once again that Russia’s war increasingly threatens the security of neighbouring states and the wider Euro-Atlantic community,” the president said in a statement.
