Romanian Mayor Says His Village Now ‘Part Of The War’ Amid Russian Drone Incursions

German and Romanian fighter jets scrambled on November 25 to track the latest in a series of drone incursions into Romania’s airspace as Russia continues to attack targets just across the Danube River in neighboring Ukraine.

Two drones entered the NATO-member’s airspace and six were reported in Moldova, where one fell on the roof of a building but did not explode. This follows an incident last week when a Russian drone hit a Turkish LPG tanker moored on the Ukrainian side of the river.

“We kind of consider ourselves part of the war,” Tudor Cernega, the mayor of Ceatalchioi village, told RFE/RL’s Romanian Service. “If the ship had exploded, the whole village would have vanished.

Residents of the village and the nearby settlement of Plauru, which also comes under his administration, were temporarily evacuated following the explosion and subsequent fire.

“People are not coming to visit their relatives any longer. They’re too scared. People have understood the danger: if a drone had fallen on a house -– God forbid — it would have killed a person or two,” Cernega said.

Time For Evacuation?

One resident said her family would consider moving away permanently if the situation deteriorated.

“If the bombings escalate, I think we might leave,” said 48-year-old Daniela Tanase.

“There have been booms here, in front of our house.”

Tanase said it was worst at night, describing how they would watch Ukrainian searchlights scouring the sky for drones during alarms.

Another villager, 73-year-old retired mechanic Gheorghe Puflea, said he was unable to sleep after being woken up by drones.

“I could leave at any moment, but what would I do with the animals? Should I leave them here?” he asked, as he scattered feed for his chickens. He also has pigs, a horse, a bull, and a dog.

“At the end of the day, the animals have gotten used to the drones,” he said, adding that they were at first panicked by explosions in Ukraine. For himself, he said, he was not afraid. “We are fine for now. We still have the NATO army here defending us.”Plauru sits just 300 meters across the river from the Ukrainian port of Izmail, where the Turkish tanker was attacked. In 2023, the Romanian Army built air raid shelters in the village.

There have been drone incursions in the area three times in the last week alone. On November 25, residents were warned to take cover as the war threatened –- once again -– to spill over into NATO territory.

Romania has legislation in place enabling it to shoot down drones during peacetime if lives or property are at risk but has not yet made use of it. Defense Minister Ionut Mosteanu said on November 25 that German pilots had also been given permission to shoot.

“Very likely, analyzing the potential collateral damage they could cause by firing weapons over Romanian territory, they chose not to engage. That’s my assumption,” he added.

In Moldova, police released a photo of the drone that came down on the roof of a building at an orchard.The drone resembles the Shahed type that is widely used by Russia and has a letter Z -– a symbol often used by the Russian military in its nearly 4-year-long full-scale invasion of Ukraine – daubed on its tail.

Police said it was not clear if the drone had an explosive charge and had evacuated local residents. The Moldovan Foreign Ministry said it would summon the Russian ambassador for an explanation.

It was later reported that a drone fragment fell into the yard of a residential building in Puiesti, a town in eastern Romania that is more than 100 kilometers from Ukraine. Nobody was hurt and the country’s Defense Ministry reported that the drone did not have a payload.

Russian drone incursions over Romania and Poland, along with Russian military jets entering Estonian airspace, have led NATO to launch its Eastern Sentry initiative to bolster air defenses.

The European Union’s executive, meanwhile, approved a five-year defense road map last month that features plans for a “drone wall” to be fully functional by the end of 2027.

The latest drone incidents in Moldova and Romania came amidst another massive Russian air attack on Ukraine. At least six people were reported killed in Kyiv, and 13 wounded./Rferl/