| Date | 15 Oct 2026 |
| Tracker | European Airspace Violations |
| Type | Incursion |
| Location |
Purcari, Ștefan Vodă District, Moldova
46.54, 29.86 (approximate) |
Moldova's Ministry of Defence said the National Army's Air Operations Service tracked an unmanned aerial vehicle through national airspace on the night of 14-15 October 2026, during Russian attacks on Ukraine's Odesa region. According to the ministry, it entered at 01:43 from the direction of Hradynivka, in the Odesa region, heading towards Purcari, in Ștefan Vodă district, and left at 01:51 towards Starokazache. The defence minister said the drone was of Russian origin and could not be intercepted, and called it the 95th violation of Moldovan airspace since the war began. No authority reported damage.
| Date | Type | Incident |
|---|---|---|
| 14 Oct 2026 | Incursion | Four aerial targets cross into Romanian airspace off Sulina in three waves |
| 15 Oct 2026 | Incursion | Drone enters Romanian airspace south-east of Sulina for about a minute |
| 16 Oct 2026 | Strike | Drone crashes and explodes near Codrenii Noi after four overnight crossings of Moldova |
| 17 Oct 2026 | Interception | Two jet-powered Geran drones shot down by Romanian F-16s over territorial waters off Sulina |
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.