| Date | 15 Oct 2026 |
| Tracker | European Airspace Violations |
| Type | Incursion |
| Location |
Sulina, Tulcea County, Romania
45.16, 29.65 (approximate) |
Romania's Ministry of National Defence said its radar tracked a group of aerial targets near Snake Island on the night of 14-15 October 2026, and two Spanish F-18s on enhanced air policing duty took off from Mihail Kogălniceanu. According to the ministry, at 01:34 a drone was detected for about a minute in national airspace south-east of Sulina, above Romanian territorial waters, before it disappeared from radar. Two Romanian F-16s were later scrambled as further targets were reported east of Snake Island, and a RO-Alert warning went out for northern and eastern Tulcea County at 04:57; no other incursion was reported. The ministry did not name the drone's origin.
| Date | Type | Incident |
|---|---|---|
| 14 Oct 2026 | Incursion | Four aerial targets cross into Romanian airspace off Sulina in three waves |
| 15 Oct 2026 | Incursion | Russian drone crosses south-eastern Moldova over Purcari for eight minutes |
| 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.
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