Military Drone May Have Crashed on an Island in the Danube
A crashed drone left behind a crater four meters in diameter.
On Thursday evening, remnants of a flying object, likely a drone, were discovered in Romania on the Great Island of Braila in an agricultural area, confirmed the Romanian Ministry of National Defense (MAPN) on Friday.
The defense ministry, along with other specialized units of the national defense, security, and public order system, is conducting on-site investigations to clarify the circumstances surrounding the incident, according to their statement.
According to eyewitness reports, local news portal DeBraila.ro reported that on Thursday evening, a loud, bright flying object passed over the Danube, which at around 10 p.m. local time, crashed with a loud explosion in the area of the Filipoiu farm, a few kilometers from the city of Braila, on an island in the Romanian section of the Danube accessible only by ferry.
The portal, illustrating its report with photos and videos from eyewitnesses, stated that the crash site, located more than 20 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, resulted in a crater approximately four meters in diameter.
Since last September, during Russian attacks on river ports critical to Ukrainian grain exports, drones presumably shot down by Ukrainian air defense have fallen on the territory of NATO member Romania several times. Following this, the United States and Germany sent additional fighter jets to the region to strengthen Romanian air defense.
Romania has constructed several air defense shelters along the border for civilian protection and regularly sends RO-Alert warnings to the mobile phones of residents in the neighboring counties of Tulcea and Galati during Russian air attacks on Ukrainian ports. These alerts warn of the danger of objects (drones or pieces of shot-down drones) falling from the sky and crashing into Romanian territory.