| Date | 24 Sep 2026 |
| Tracker | European Airspace Violations |
| Type | Strike |
| Location |
Solca, Suceava County, Romania
47.70, 25.84 (approximate) |
Romania's Ministry of National Defence said its radar tracked an aerial target over Ukrainian territory near the northern border of Botoșani County on the morning of 24 September 2026, during Russian strikes on Ukraine, before it entered Romanian airspace. According to the ministry, it flew for about four minutes in national airspace and crashed near Solca, in Suceava County, without casualties, damage or fire. Two F-16s took off from the 86th Air Base at Borcea and RO-Alert warnings went out in Botoșani and Suceava from 06:26. Interior Ministry teams secured the site and found a small drone. The ministry did not state its origin.
| Date | Type | Incident |
|---|---|---|
| 21 Sep 2026 | Incursion | Drones cross northern Moldova overnight and clip Palanca at midday |
| 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 |
| 26 Sep 2026 | Incursion | Unidentified aerial object crosses Moldova's Transnistrian region for two minutes |
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.