| Date | 18 Sep 2026 |
| Tracker | European Airspace Violations |
| Type | Strike |
| Location |
Colonita, Chisinau, Moldova
47.04, 28.95 (approximate) |
An explosion on the morning of 18 September 2026 brought police to a field outside Colonita, a village on the edge of Chisinau, where they reported finding debris apparently from a drone. Moldova's foreign ministry said any unauthorised entry into Moldovan airspace is unacceptable and constitutes a serious violation of the country's sovereignty, and described the incident as a new and serious consequence of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, while stopping short of blaming Moscow for the drone itself. Authorities did not give the origin of the suspected drone, and no casualties or damage were reported.
| Date | Type | Incident |
|---|---|---|
| 15 Sep 2026 | Incursion | Russian Gerbera drone crosses from Belarus into Lithuanian airspace and is shot down near Kaunas |
| 17 Sep 2026 | Incursion | Unidentified drone crosses Moldovan airspace at Tudora for two minutes |
| 19 Sep 2026 | Incursion | Drones cross Moldovan airspace at Caplani before leaving towards Ukraine |
| 21 Sep 2026 | Incursion | Drones cross northern Moldova overnight and clip Palanca at midday |
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.