The details regarding the actions of the Romanian armed forces to neutralize the russia’s long-range UAV, which on Friday, July 24, violated the country's airspace and was shot down by an F-16 fighter, are quite revealing.
In particular, this russian drone, the model of which is still to be determined, was spotted 20 km east of the village of Sulina, on the border with Ukraine in the area of the Danube mouth, at 09:39 local time. The UAV was shot down at 11:02, during which time it flew a complex route of more than 350 km.
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As the Romanian Air Force reported to Defense Romania, the russia’s drone flew west from Sulina to the city of Braila for more than 130 km. The UAV then headed south and reached the area of the city of Feteşti, having traveled another 110 km. At the same time, this city is located only 40 km from the border with Bulgaria. The UAV then headed northwest and was shot down near the city of Buzău.
On the part of Defense Express, we note that the direct distances between these settlements total 360 km. At the same time, it is unlikely that the Russian drone flew clearly on course, without making additional maneuvers.
But even if we assume that the UAV could cover 360 km, then taking into account this distance and the time spent in Romanian airspace (about 1 hour 22 minutes), the average speed of the drone was over 260 km/h. This figure is significantly higher than the cruising speed of russian long-range drones such as Shahed, Geran-2 and Gerbera-type UAVs equipped with internal combustion engines, which is about 180 km/h.
The analysis shows that the speed of the russian UAV, which was in Romanian airspace on July 24, 2026, is closer to that of russia’s jet UAVs such as Geran-3 or Geran-4, which have a cruising speed of about 300 km/h. According to rough calculations, such a russian jet drone would have flown about 400 km in total – so, taking into account possible additional maneuvers of the UAV, this distance is close to that shown by previous calculations. On the other hand, it cannot be ruled out that the Romanian air defense system could have had some difficulties tracking the drone, and its actual flight range was shorter...
Romania has not yet named even the type of russian drone. But the Romanian defense ministry said that four fighters were sent to intercept it. Two Eurofighter Typhoons of the Italian Air Force, which are on duty as part of the NATO mission at the Mihail Kogălniceanu airbase, took off at 09:48.
But for unknown reasons, the Italian fighters were unable to neutralize the target. At 10:56 from the air base in Feteşti, near which the russian drone flew, two Romanian F-16s took to the sky, one of which shot down the target after 8 minutes.
Let us recall that the last time russian drones attacked Romania was on May 29 of this year. Then a russian Shahed-type UAV struck a multi-storey residential building in the Romanian city of Galati. This happened despite the fact that Romania has 55 F-16s, a constant patrol of fighters from other NATO countries, as well as 41 Gepard anti-aircraft drones, which are extremely effective in intercepting.
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