| Date | 26 Sep 2026 |
| Tracker | European Airspace Violations |
| Type | Incursion |
| Location |
Novocotovsc, Transnistria, Moldova
46.77, 29.96 (approximate) |
Moldova's Ministry of Defence said the National Army's Air Operations Service tracked an unauthorised flight through national airspace on 26 September 2026, during Russian attacks on Ukraine. According to the ministry, the aerial object entered at 11:16 from the direction of Stepanivka, in Ukraine's Odesa region, crossing towards Novocotovsc in the Transnistrian region, and left two minutes later from the direction of Pervomaisc towards Lymanske. That evening the Border Police, alerted by residents, found fragments of a drone outside Volintiri, in Ștefan Vodă district, and secured the site; the authorities did not link the two. No operator was named.
| Date | Type | Incident |
|---|---|---|
| 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 |
| 24 Sep 2026 | Strike | Drone enters Romania over northern Botoșani and crashes near Solca after four minutes |
| 26 Sep 2026 | Incursion | Drone follows the Chilia branch into Romania and vanishes from radar near Pardina |
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.