Two Romanian Air Force F-16s were sent against a small maritime drone drifting inside Romania’s exclusive economic zone on August 20, 2026, and one of the aircraft opened fire on it with its onboard gun, the Ministry of National Defense (MApN) said.
Defense minister says explosive drone was destroyed
According to MApN, a commercial vessel reported the drifting drone at about 06:28 local time near the Neptun Alpha production platform, roughly 80 nautical miles east of Constanța.
One F-16 “executed fire with the onboard gun upon it, the target being hit,” the ministry said. A Coast Guard vessel carrying an explosive ordnance disposal team from the Romanian Naval Forces was dispatched to verify the result, and the ministry described the mission as ongoing at the time of publication.
Interim Defense Minister Radu Miruță gave a fuller account in a Facebook post on August 20, 2026, saying the Coast Guard had reported a maritime drone a few hundred meters from gas extraction work at Neptun Deep. A command cell was set up at ministry level and requested that command authority pass from NATO to the Romanian military, he wrote.
After coordinating with President Nicușor Dan, the decision was made to destroy the drone to protect several hundred workers on the platform and secure critical infrastructure. Miruță said two F-16s were launched with authorization to fire and that the drone was destroyed safely.
Miruță also said a direct channel with Ukraine produced official confirmation that the drone was not Ukrainian, without identifying its origin.
Another drone entered Romanian airspace hours earlier
The engagement follows a run of incidents around the same field. On August 11, 2026, Romanian Naval Forces divers destroyed two drifting drones near Neptun Deep by controlled detonation. Neptun Deep is operated by OMV Petrom, which holds a 50% interest alongside Romgaz Black Sea.
On August 12, 2026, Vice Admiral Mihai Panait, chief of the Naval Forces Staff, identified those as Gerbera types of Russian production and said 159 sea mines have been found and destroyed in the Black Sea basin. On August 16, 2026, an EOD team recovered a drone wing about 83 nautical miles east of Constanța.
Separately, in the early hours of August 20, 2026, MApN said a drone crossed into Romanian airspace about 13 kilometers east of Galați at 03:21 and crashed near Grindu, Tulcea County, three minutes later, after Spanish Air and Space Force F-18s were scrambled. A Spanish F-18 shot down a drone over Romania on August 16, 2026, and Romanian pilots first destroyed a drone over national territory on July 24, 2026. Bucharest expelled a Russian embassy staff member in July 2026 over repeated incursions.