Russian drone hits Romanian apartment block, injures civilians; Tusk urges NATO response

A Russian drone crashed into an apartment block in the southeastern Romanian city of Galați in the early hours of Friday, injuring a woman and a child, during a Russian attack on neighboring Ukraine, Romania’s defense ministry said.

Romania, a NATO and EU member sharing a 650-kilometer land border with Ukraine, has repeatedly reported Russian drones breaching its airspace as Moscow strikes Ukrainian ports across the Danube River. Friday’s incident was the first time a densely populated area in a NATO country had been hit with injuries since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Romanian President Nicușor Dan called the drone crash the “most serious incident” since the invasion began. NATO accused Russia of “reckless” behavior and pledged to “defend every inch of Allied territory.”

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Saturday urged NATO to take Russia’s provocations more seriously. “Poland, Baltic states, now Romania. More and more Russian provocations,” Tusk wrote on X. “Yesterday, the former [Russian] president Dmitry Medvedev said that the peaceful sleep of EU citizens is over. Everyone in NATO should finally start taking these facts and words seriously,” he added.

Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, warned on Friday that drone incidents would “continue to happen.” “Let them get ready: this will continue to happen,” Medvedev said in a statement. “There is a war going on! And the citizens of EU states, as the population of the belligerent countries, will not be able to sleep peacefully,” he added. Medvedev accused European governments of participating in the war against Ukraine by supplying drones, weapons and intelligence.