Since Russia withdrew from the grain agreement earlier in July, the Ukrainian Odessa region has been heavily bombed. One of the places that has been hit by Russian robots and drones on several occasions is the port city of Izmail on the Danube River. The river also acts as a national border and on the other side is the NATO country Romania.
Ukraine: Have photo proof
When it was reported on Monday that a drone attack had been carried out against the city, Ukrainian authorities stated that a Russian drone had struck Romanian soil. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kuleba said they had photographic evidence of this.
Romania initially denied
During Monday and Tuesday, several Romanian government representatives repeatedly dismissed these reports. But on Wednesday, the country’s defense minister reversed course, saying that scrap from a drone had been found in the area.
The parts will now be analyzed and if they turn out to come from Russia, this would be a “serious violation”, says Romanian President Klaus Johannis.
Correspondent: May invoke Article 4
The reason it was messy and that there was conflicting information may be because NATO initially did not trust the Ukrainian information. Because NATO’s radar system did not alert that something had entered Romania’s airspace. That’s what SVT’s European correspondent Christoffer Wendick says.
The fact that a Russian drone has hit a NATO country can have consequences, but what they will be depends entirely on how the drone ended up there.
– If it was a deliberate provocation by Russia, then Romania can invoke Article 4 of the NATO statutes, which means that they call a meeting with all NATO countries to decide whether to respond, says Wendick.
– If it was instead an accident, or that it was shot down from the Ukrainian side, then they will instead want to downplay this incident in order not to unnecessarily escalate a conflict between NATO and Russia, he says.