At 08:30 EEST (05:30 UTC) on Saturday, 25 July 2026, a Romanian Air Force F-16 shot down a drone that had entered Romanian airspace above the Danube Delta approximately 10 km west of Sfântu Gheorghe, Tulcea county. According to Defence Minister Radu Miruță, the Ministry of National Defence's radar network detected the target the moment it crossed into Romanian territory at 08:18 EEST (05:18 UTC) and the pilot engaged it twelve minutes later in an uninhabited area near the Ukrainian border. The Romanian Prosecutor General's Office confirmed the drone was of the Shahed type used by Russian forces. No one was injured.
This was Romania's second drone intercept in less than 24 hours. On Friday, 24 July, a Romanian F-16 had downed a Shahed-type drone near Padina, Buzău county in the first documented Romanian intercept over its own territory.
Associative image. This image is not from the incident described. It shows F-16 fighter aircraft of the type operated by Romania's Air Force for air policing missions over the Danube Delta corridor.
Romania's radar tracked and intercepted the drone within 12 minutes of border crossing
The drone entered Romanian airspace from the direction of Ukraine's Odesa coastal zone at 08:18 EEST (05:18 UTC). The Ministry of National Defence's radar network detected the intrusion immediately; two Romanian F-16s were scrambled. At 08:30 EEST (05:30 UTC), twelve minutes after the target crossed the border, a Romanian pilot brought it down in an unpopulated area close to the frontier. Italian Air Force Eurofighter Typhoons operating from Mihail Kogălniceanu air base in Constanța under the NATO Enhanced Air Policing mission were also scrambled; the Romanian F-16 made the intercept.
The 25 July intercept was considerably faster and closer to the border than the previous day's. On 24 July, the drone ultimately shot down near Padina had entered east of Sulina and travelled approximately 200 km over Romanian territory before jets could engage it, covering that distance in roughly 80 minutes. On 25 July the same outcome was reached in 12 minutes and 10 km. Defence Minister Miruță stated after the intercept that the pattern was "consistent with previous confirmed flights by Russian drones."
The Prosecutor General's Office confirmed Shahed type and Russian origin
Romania's Prosecutor General's Office, which had begun forensic examination of fragments from both drone incidents, confirmed that the 25 July drone was of the Shahed type used by Russian forces. The finding matched the result from the 24 July examination. President Nicușor Dan confirmed the intercept publicly on Saturday morning, the second such confirmation in two days.
A third Romanian drone intercept followed on Sunday, 26 July, with a Shahed-136 brought down by an F-16 in the Sulina-Chilia area of Romania's Black Sea territorial waters. Following that third intercept, Romania summoned the Russian ambassador to the Foreign Affairs Ministry.
Romania's July shoot-downs mark a shift from the tolerance shown before the Galați strike
Before July 2026, Romania's Air Force had scrambled repeatedly in response to drone intrusions without destroying any intruder over Romanian territory. The failure to intercept a drone before it could reach a populated area had its worst outcome on 29 May 2026, when a Russian Geran-2 struck a 10-storey apartment building on Bulevardul Brăilei in Galați, injuring two residents in the first Russian drone strike to injure anyone on NATO territory. Romania's Ministry of National Defence recorded that event as the 28th documented Romanian airspace breach since Russia began targeting Ukraine's Danube port infrastructure with Geran-2 drones.
Since 2022, Russian drones have breached Romanian airspace around 30 times, according to Romanian government statements during the July 2026 intercept sequence. The 24 and 25 July shoot-downs are the first two times Romanian forces destroyed an intruder before it could reach a populated area. An earlier intrusion that used the same Danube Delta entry corridor happened on 25 February 2026, when a Geran-type drone entered near Sfântu Gheorghe, Tulcea, crossed northern Tulcea County, and exited over Black Sea waters near Sulina without being intercepted.
AirVeto's wind layer for this event provides regional context, not a drone trajectory reconstruction
The Shahed-136 (and its Geran-2 derivative) is a powered, guidance-controlled loitering munition flying a preprogrammed route. Unlike contraband balloons, which are pure wind-drift objects and whose transit corridor AirVeto can reconstruct directly from the wind field, a guided military drone's ground track is determined by its navigation system and airspeed. The wind layer shown for the 05:18-05:30 UTC window over the Danube Delta and the Sfântu Gheorghe coastal zone is regional meteorological context for the intercept area, not a release-point or trajectory reconstruction.
This reconstruction draws on reporting by Euronews, NBC News, The Defense Post, Ukrainska Pravda, and Al Jazeera, and on AirVeto's wind-model data for the 05:18-05:30 UTC window on 25 July 2026. Methodology behind AirVeto's wind modelling is documented on the methodology page. A full archive of drone and airspace incidents across the EU eastern frontier is at the incident archive.