Romania says a Russian drone violated its airspace

KYIV, Ukraine — A Russian drone violated Romania’s airspace during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, the NATO member reported Sunday, urging Moscow to stop what it described as an escalation.

The incident occurred as Russia carried out attacks on “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube River in Ukraine, Romania’s Ministry of National Defense said.

Romania deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace, and NATO allies were kept informed, the ministry said. Romanian emergency authorities also issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions.

Preliminary data indicates there may be an “impact zone” in an uninhabited area near the Romanian village of Periprava, the ministry said. It added that an investigation is underway.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Romania has confirmed drone fragments on its territory on several occasions and as recently as July this year.

The Romanian Defense Ministry strongly condemned the Russian attacks on Ukraine, calling them “unjustified and in serious contradiction with the norms of international law.”

Mircea Geoana, NATO’s outgoing deputy secretary-general and Romania’s former top diplomat, said the military alliance also condemned Russia’s violation of Romanian airspace. “While we have no information indicating an intentional attack by Russia against Allies, these acts are irresponsible and potentially dangerous,” he wrote on X.

In Ukraine, two civilians died and four more suffered wounds in a nighttime Russian airstrike on the northern city of Sumy, the regional military administration reported. Two children were among those wounded, the administration said. In the Kharkiv region in the east, overnight shelling killed two elderly women, according to local Gov. Oleh Syniehubov.

During the night, Ukrainian air defenses shot down one of four cruise missiles and 15 of 23 Iranian-made Shahed drones launched by Russia, Ukraine’s air force reported. It added that none of the cruise missiles had hit targets.

Later on Sunday, three women were killed after Russian forces shelled a village in the eastern Donetsk region, Gov. Vadym Filashkin reported on the Telegram messaging app. Elsewhere in the province, rescue teams pulled the bodies of two men from the rubble of a hotel destroyed on Saturday evening in a Russian airstrike, according to Ukraine’s state emergency service.

That same day, the death toll rose to 58 from the massive Russian missile strike that on Tuesday blasted a military academy and nearby hospital in the eastern city of Poltava, regional Gov. Filip Pronin reported. More than 320 others were wounded.

Since it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, the Russian military has repeatedly used missiles to smash civilian targets, sometimes killing scores of people in a single attack.

Poltava is about 200 miles southeast of Kyiv, on the main highway and rail route between Kyiv and Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, which is close to the Russian border.

The attack happened as Ukrainian forces sought to carve out their holdings in Russia’s Kursk border region after a surprise incursion that began Aug. 6, as the Russian army hacks its way deeper into eastern Ukraine.

Russian forces continued their montshlong grinding push towards the city of Pokrovsk, and also ramped up attacks near the town of Kurakhove farther south, Ukraine’s General Staff reported.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Sunday its troops had taken Novohrodivka, a small town some 11 miles southeast of Pokrovsk. An update published Saturday evening by DeepState, a Ukrainian battlefield analysis site, said Russian forces had “advanced” in Novohrodivka and captured Nevelske, a village in the southeast of the Pokrovsk district.

Pokrovsk, which had a prewar population of about 60,000, is one of Ukraine’s main defensive strongholds and a key logistics hub in the Donetsk region. Its capture would compromise Ukraine’s defense and supply routes, and would bring Russia closer to its stated aim of capturing the entire Donetsk region.

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Associated Press writer Stephen McGrath in Sighisoara, Romania contributed to this report.