At 10:15 local time (07:15 UTC) on 1 September 2026, a resident found a crashed drone in a field near Viișoara commune, Vaslui County, roughly 30 km from the border with Moldova, and called the local police station. Romania's Intelligence Service (SRI) confirmed the aircraft was carrying explosives, and its counter-terrorism specialists detonated it in a controlled blast that afternoon, Digi24 reported. No injuries or property damage were recorded.
A shepherd disarmed the drone before police arrived
Before authorities reached the scene, a local shepherd who found the device tried to silence it himself. Digi24 reported he described the drone as emitting a beeping sound with flashing lights, so he pulled out the wires to stop it, unaware it was carrying an explosive charge. Police, gendarmerie and SRI counter-terrorism specialists arrived afterward, cordoned off the field, and expanded the security perimeter once the explosive content was confirmed. Vaslui Prefect Andrei Șerban said officials were "waiting for the results of the inspections" as representatives of SRI, the county gendarmerie inspectorate and the police carried out their investigation. The device was safely detonated by 16:33 local time (13:33 UTC). The Prosecutor's Office attached to the Iași Court of Appeal was informed and assigned the case.
The find came hours after drone incursions into Estonia the same night
The Viișoara discovery followed a night of drone activity across Russia's war on Ukraine reaching NATO territory. Hours earlier, Latvia and Estonia both issued airspace alerts and scrambled NATO jets after drones approached or crossed their borders, see the Latvia and Estonia drone alerts. Romania borders Ukraine's Odesa Oblast, one of the primary targets of large-scale Russian strikes that night. The same strikes damaged the Orlivka international ferry crossing on the Romanian border. As of the Viișoara find, Romania Insider counted at least 25 drone-related airspace incidents linked to the war in Ukraine over 2026.
Viișoara is the second drone found on the ground in Vaslui County within a year. In November 2025, a Gerbera-type decoy drone was recovered in a field near Puiești, roughly 33 km away, the deepest confirmed penetration of NATO territory by a Russian-launched drone at the time, see the Puiești drone crash. That device carried no warhead; the Viișoara drone did. Neither Romanian officials nor SRI disclosed the drone's origin or type in connection with the Viișoara find.
Wind conditions over Vaslui County
At 07:00 UTC on 1 September, the 1,000 m layer over Viișoara showed wind pushing north-northeast at 27.3 km/h. At 2,000 m it backed to push northeast at 13.3 km/h; at 3,000 m it shifted further to push east at 10 km/h.
This reconstruction is based on reporting by Digi24, Romania Insider, Kyiv Independent and BTA, and on AirVeto's wind-model data for the 07:15-13:33 UTC window on 1 September 2026. How the model is built and where it is reliable is on the methodology page. A full archive of drone and airspace incidents across the EU's eastern border is at the incident archive.