| Date | 26 Jul 2026 |
| Tracker | European Airspace Violations |
| Type | Interception |
| Location |
Sulina, Tulcea County, Romania
45.16, 29.65 (approximate) |
A third drone was shot down by a Romanian F-16, destroyed over Romanian territorial waters 12 km north-east of Sulina five minutes after entering national airspace. Romania's foreign minister summoned the Russian ambassador after the third violation in three days. The Romanian ambassador to Moscow was recalled and a member of the Russian embassy staff in Bucharest was declared persona non grata on 27 July.
| Date | Type | Incident |
|---|---|---|
| 24 Jul 2026 | Interception | Romanian F-16 downs Russian drone over the Danube Delta |
| 25 Jul 2026 | Interception | Second Russian drone destroyed by Romanian F-16 in two days |
| 27 Jul 2026 | Incursion | Russian drone briefly enters Romanian airspace and returns to Ukraine |
| 30 Jul 2026 | Strike | Russian cruise missile crosses into Poland and detonates in a field |
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.