BUCHAREST — Romania scrambled two F-16 fighter jets and a helicopter on Saturday afternoon after an unauthorised aerial target entered its airspace from the direction of the Republic of Moldova, the Romanian Ministry of National Defence said. Romania is a member of NATO, and its radar system detected the target about 10 kilometres from the Moldovan border.

The two F-16s were on Air Policing combat duty and took off to monitor the object, according to the ministry statement reported by Informat.ro. The National Military Command Center alerted the General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations, and the first RO-Alert phone warning went out at 17:04 to people in the north of Iași County.

Source: Informat.ro — Romanian Ministry of National Defence statement, Oct 31

Similar alerts were then issued in Neamț, Botoșani and Bacău counties, and the warning was extended to Suceava County at 18:44 — six counties in Romania's north-east in all. The ministry did not say where the aerial target came from, what type of drone it was, or whether it was intercepted, and it reported no damage or injuries on Romanian territory.

On the same day, a drone also flew over the airspace of the Republic of Moldova without authorisation, and Moldovan authorities imposed flight restrictions in the northern and central parts of the country, the Romanian ministry said. An independent daily account of the war, Ukraine War Daily, also reported drones entering Romanian airspace on Saturday, with Romania scrambling F-16s and a helicopter and Moldova reporting its own incursion.

The defence ministry said 35 unauthorised incursions into Romanian airspace have been recorded since the beginning of 2026. Romania shares a long border with Ukraine and Moldova, and spillover incidents linked to Russia's war in Ukraine have repeatedly put its air defences on alert — but officials did not attribute Saturday's target to any country, and no side had claimed or been assigned responsibility in the statements available on Saturday night.