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By Ellie Cook and Shane Croucher
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Two German fighter jets were scrambled in Romania after a drone breached NATO airspace during a massive Russian aerial attack on western Ukraine overnight into Wednesday.
A drone was detected around five miles into Romanian airspace for a few minutes before radar systems lost track of the uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV), Romania's defense ministry said in a statement.
It "reappeared intermittently" on radars for roughly 12 minutes, Bucharest said. Two Romanian F-16 fighter jets also took off from a base in central Romania.
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The drone did not appear to crash on Romanian territory, but specialist teams "are ready to begin on-site searches," the government said.
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Why It Matters
Russian drones have crossed into NATO territory a number of times since the Kremlin began its full-scale war in Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Romania has found Russian drone fragments several times and often scrambles fighter jets when Russia carries out intensive attacks on western regions of Ukraine.
Europe is rushing to quickly bolster its drone defenses after roughly 20 UAVs crossed into NATO member Poland in September.
Romania's Tulcea region sits directly across the border from the Ukrainian port of Izmail, which Russia has repeatedly targeted. The Danube River marks the border between the two countries, just north of Tulcea.
What To Know
Tulcea residents received an alert at 00:20 a.m. local time as the drone traveled from the Ukrainian border village of Vylkove west toward the Romanian settlements of Periprava and Chilia Veche, the defense ministry said.
The drone signal reappeared around Colibași, a village in Moldova close to both Romania and Ukraine, before moving back into Romania around the Foltești and Oancea areas, according to the statement. Moldova separately said its monitoring systems had not detected the low-flying drone, but that it had confirmed the breach with Ukraine and Romania.
Both Oancea and Foltești are in Romania's Galați region. Local residents in northern Galați received an alert just before 1 a.m. local time.
Five German Eurofighter Typhoon jets are deployed at Romania's Mihail Kogălniceanu Air Base in the southwest of the country as part of a rotation of NATO's air policing missions. The German jets landed back at the base shortly before 2 a.m. and the F-16s returned to their separate airbase at 2.30 a.m., Romania's government said.
Ukrainian officials said Russia launched 476 drones and 48 missiles of varying types at the country overnight, including seven of Russia's Kalibr cruise missiles. Ukraine's air force said it had intercepted all of the 41 cruise missiles and 442 drones.
Russia's Defense Ministry said it had carried out a "massive strike" on western Ukraine in response to a Ukrainian attack "on civilian targets in Russia." Moscow said it had hit all intended targets in Ukraine.
Russia said earlier on Wednesday that Ukraine had attacked the southwestern Russian city of Voronezh with U.S.-supplied Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) on Tuesday. Moscow said it had intercepted all four incoming ballistic missiles and destroyed the Ukrainian launchers across the border. Ukraine had on Tuesday confirmed an ATACMS attack on unspecified "military targets" in Russia.
At least 10 people were killed in a Russian attack on two apartment blocks in the western city of Ternopil overnight into Wednesday, according to Ukraine's interior minister, Ihor Klymenko. Another 37 were injured, including 12 children, he said.
More people may be buried under rubble in the city, said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Two children and one adult were injured in the western Ivano-Frankivsk region, officials said, and one person was injured in the eastern Donetsk region, which has borne the brunt of the heaviest fighting of the war.
Russia launched a "massive strike" against the northeastern city of Kharkiv, wounding dozens of people, Zelensky said. Moscow also targeted the Kyiv area, as well as the northern Chernihiv region, the president said.
Attacks were also reported in the central Ukrainian Cherkasy and Dnipro regions, and in the southern Mykolaiv area.
Zelensky said Russia had homed in on critical energy infrastructure in Kharkiv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Lviv.
Maksym Kozytsky, the governor of the western Lviv region, said an energy facility, a woodworking business and a warehouse were damaged overnight, but no one was injured. Emergency power outages were imposed on the region on Wednesday and authorities said warehouses over a 10,000 square meter area were on fire.
Ukraine's air force said its U.S.-made F-16s and French-manufactured Mirage-2000 fighter jets had shot down at least 10 Russian cruise missiles overnight.
Ukraine has received F-16s from several of its allies and a handful of Mirage-2000s from Paris.
What People Are Saying
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday: "All necessary emergency services are on the ground, trying to save every life."
Update 11/19/2025 at 6:30 a.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.
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