| Date | 25 Apr 2026 |
| Tracker | European Airspace Violations |
| Type | Strike |
| Location |
Galați, Romania
45.44, 28.01 (approximate) |
Romanian radar detected Russian drones near the border during an attack on Ukrainian ports, and two RAF Eurofighter Typhoons on air policing were ordered up from the 86th Air Base while local air defences moved to firing positions. Ground radar tracked 15 drones over Reni in Ukrainian airspace. The British fighters received authorisation to engage a contact but returned without firing. One drone then flew low over Lake Brateș and struck a house and a power pole in the Bariera Traian quarter of Galați — the first time a Russian drone caused property damage in Romania. Fragments of another were found at Văcăreni, and a second explosive-carrying drone was destroyed there by a pyrotechnics team the next day.
| Date | Type | Incident |
|---|---|---|
| 16 Apr 2026 | Incursion | Russian drone violates Romanian airspace over Chilia Veche |
| 3 May 2026 | Incursion | Unmarked drone falls 20 km inside Romania in Suceava County |
| 3 May 2026 | Incursion | Two drones enter Finnish airspace, airspace closed for three hours |
| 7 May 2026 | Strike | Ukrainian drone strikes oil storage facility at Rēzekne |
GlobalMilitary.net's 2026 inventory snapshot shows nine NATO members — Iceland, Luxembourg, the three Baltic states, Montenegro, Albania, North Macedonia and Slovenia — hold no fixed-wing fighters, attack aircraft or bombers and depend on Allied air policing.
GlobalMilitary.net's incident log counts 45 established violations of European airspace between January 1 and August 16, 2026, against 31 for the whole of 2025 - and almost all of the growth sits in incidents that ended with a shootdown or an explosion on the ground.
An Italian Eurofighter on NATO Baltic Air Policing duty destroyed an unidentified drone over eastern Latvia before dawn on 14 August, the second time the alliance's quick-reaction force has shot one down over the country this year.