Former NATO official says ‘better’ drone defences urgently needed

Former North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) Deputy Secretary General, Mircea Geoană, said that much better defences were required by Europe to ward off drones – and the Romanian city of Galați still lives in a state of “shock” following an incursion by a Russian drone carrying explosives on Friday.

Late last week an unmanned aerial vehicle crashed into a residential building in the Romanian south-eastern port city near the border of Ukraine, sparking a fire and injuring two people.

The Romanian government blamed Moscow for the incident and declared the Russian consul in Constanța a persona non grata while closing the consulate.

In recent weeks, several drones have entered European airspace, causing concern across the Baltics. However, this is the first incident in which Romanians have been injured.

“The shock of the Russian incursion and explosion on a block of apartments in Galați is still here with us,” Geoană said in comments to Euronews’ Europe Today programme on Monday.

“Galați is a big city, an industrial city on the Danube. On the other side of the river, there is Ukraine, and Russia is constantly attacking infrastructure on the Ukrainian side,” he said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has rejected blame for the drone crash, while the country’s deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev inferred more drones would continue to stray into European skies. “The peaceful sleep is over,” he said.

“Concern” within Bucharest had cumulated over more than four years of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine due to the country’s proximity to the battlefield, said Geoană, who served within NATO’s upper echelons between 2019 and 2024. He also served as Romanian Foreign Minister from 2000 to 2004.

A Romanian fighter jet of NATO’s Baltic Air Policing Mission successfully shot down a stray drone that entered Estonia’s airspace on 19 May. Asked why this did not occur in Romania on Friday, Geoană said the military did not “have enough time or space to shoot”.

Romania’s Ministry of Defence did scramble two F-16 fighter jets to respond to the aircraft, however Romania’s General Gheorghe Maxim said the forces had insufficient time – only four minutes – to shoot it down.

The incident has further underlined the need for NATO to better equip itself against the form of modern warfare that occurs in low-altitude, Geoană said.

“We have to do a much better effort to try to find the right kind of air and missile defence for NATO in general,” he explained.

“For mid-altitude and high altitude, let’s say there are some things in place: Patriot missiles, F-16 things, F-35 NATO operations.”

“For this basically low altitude things… you can acquire them, the only thing is that you have to put your right priorities in the right place.”

Watch the full interview in the player above.