Drone Strikes an Apartment Block in Eastern Romania Near the Ukrainian Border

At approximately 1:50 am on Friday, a drone struck an apartment building on the 10th floor in the city of Galati near the Ukrainian border, injuring  two people, emergency services reported.  

Around 70 residents were evacuated and the two victims were taken to the hospital with minor injuries, while two others were treated for panic attacks, stated Catalin Sion, a spokesperson for the Galati emergency services.

The Romanian Defense Minister claimed in a press release that the UAV came from Russia without providing any substantial evidence demonstrating its origin. Meanwhile, the EU and NATO condemned Russia for the alleged attack. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin rejected the accusation made by Romanian authorities and demanded evidence:

“No one can determine the origin of any aircraft until a proper forensic examination of that aircraft is conducted. If they provide us with any objective data, then we can give our assessment of what happened,” he said during a press conference in Kazakhstan. 

This incident comes just a week after a Ukrainian drone strike on the Starobilsk college dormitory in the Luhansk People’s Republic, killing 21 teenagers aged 14-18 and leaving 42 injured. The timing has raised suspicions in Moscow that the drone crash in Romania could be a false flag operation designed to divert attention from this Ukrainian strike. 

In the past, there have been reported incidents of Ukrainian drones in Poland, Finland, and some Baltic States, as President Putin noted during a press conference in Kazakhstan. 

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