After a Russian drone injured two people overnight on Friday in Romania’s city of Galati, President Nicusor Dan called for NATO support and defended the military’s decision not to shoot it down.

“Romanian Armed Forces acted in accordance with the procedures established for such situations, under firm orders to shoot down the drone as soon as conditions allowed for such an operation without the risk of casualties or damage on the ground,” he said.

“The decision not to engage the target was taken because the conditions did not exist to destroy it without the heightened risk of endangering civilian safety,” he added.

Whether this was indeed the primary reason remains open to question. While intercepting a UAV, or drone, carrying a 50 to 90 kg warhead inevitably carries the risk of falling debris, such risks are often lower than those posed by a direct impact on a residential building.

Western security officials, therefore, suspect that the reluctance to shoot down Russian drones may instead reflect Romania’s desire to avoid a more confrontational posture towards Moscow.

Russian drones entering Romanian airspace en route to Ukraine are frequently shadowed by NATO aircraft until they eventually hit Ukrainian territory.

In one such incident in September 2025, two Romanian F-16s tracked a Russian drone for nearly 50 minutes after it entered Romanian airspace before it ultimately crashed in Ukraine.

Russian drones veering off course and subsequently falling on Romanian territory have become a recurring occurrence since 2023.

Although Friday’s incident marked the first time civilians were injured, drones have previously struck inhabited areas and damaged buildings, including in Galati only a month ago.

In the eastern border village of Plauru, near the Ukrainian border, Russian UAVs have repeatedly crashed in recent years. Residents described shrapnel landing on rooftops during Russian UAV attacks on the nearby Ukrainian port city of Izmail.

At the same time, the then-president Klaus Iohannis publicly claimed that “no drone” had struck Romanian territory, a statement that was later contradicted both by analysts and Romania’s own military.

(bw, mm)