Residents near the Romanian-Ukrainian border were issued emergency alerts early Wednesday, advising them to stay calm and seek shelter in response to Russia’s strikes on Ukrainian ports along the Danube.
The Ministry of Defense reported its discovery of Russian drone components on Romanian soil for the third time within a week.
However, the NATO member’s government informed residents that the risk of a cross-border escalation was negligible.
The Romanian military is currently erecting improvised concrete shelters.
Just after midnight, residents in eight villages located in eastern Romania were alerted via their phones about the likelihood of objects descending from the surrounding airspace.
‘Keep calm! Take shelter in basements or in civil protection shelters,’ it said. ‘In the absence of a shelter, stay inside the house, away from the windows and exterior walls.’
The defense ministry of Romania has revealed that it identified a group of drones moving towards Ukrainian ports, located directly across the Danube from Romania, regions that have been the focus of heightened Russian activity in recent weeks.
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The ministry indicated that the alert had been activated as a result of potential drone-related incidents in the Tulcea and Nufaru regions.
Inhabitants of border villages frequently report hearing drones flying over Romanian territory, despite Nufaru being located 14km (8.7 miles) to the south of the border.
‘When the sirens wail at night, that’s when you should expect the drones to come,’ Costica Tanase, a local in Plauru on the Ukraine-Romania border informed newsmen.
‘It shakes like an earthquake’ when a drone approaches, 70-year-old farmer Gheorghe Puflea said.
Its defence ministry further mentioned it had discovered pieces that are from a drone same as those employed by the Russian army on a hill 2km (1.25 miles) south of Nufaru.
‘It’s hard to see the area from the ground. You can see it better from the air. That’s why the crash site was first spotted from a helicopter,’ local military commander Antoanel Vatamanu said.
Initially, Romania rejected reports last week regarding the possible presence of Russian drone parts on its soil. However, authorities have subsequently identified three separate findings of potential fragments and are currently conducting investigations into their source. The most recent discovery is located farthest from the Ukrainian border.