| Date | 21 Sep 2026 |
| Tracker | European Airspace Violations |
| Type | Incursion |
| Location |
Tabani, Briceni District, Moldova
48.31, 27.10 (approximate) |
Moldova's Air Operations Service tracked two unauthorised crossings of Moldovan airspace on 21 September 2026 during Russian strikes on Ukraine. At 00:17 an unidentified aerial object entered from Ukraine's Vinnytsia region, was tracked north through Transnistria and towards Briceni District, and disappeared from radar near Tabani at 00:44; northern airspace was closed for 24 minutes and army engineers searched the area. At 12:34 a second object crossed the border near Palanca from the direction of Maiaky and left towards Ukraine two minutes later. No operator was named.
| Date | Type | Incident |
|---|---|---|
| 18 Sep 2026 | Strike | Drone crashes and explodes near Chisinau at Colonita |
| 19 Sep 2026 | Incursion | Drones cross Moldovan airspace at Caplani before leaving towards Ukraine |
| 23 Sep 2026 | Incursion | Russian Mi-8 helicopter crosses from Kaliningrad into Polish airspace near Braniewo |
| 24 Sep 2026 | Strike | Russian Gerbera drone crashes and explodes at Cernița as four drones cross northern Moldova |
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.