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Third Drone Shot Down in Three Days in Romanian Territory
- esseph 2mo agoDrones shot down in Romania, Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Finland, etc. These are probes. Judging responses and response times. Rumor is Polish GROM have been inside Russia for months. Edit: See sources in my comment below. I bring receipts.
- notathrowaway51 2mo agoCan you elaborate on the last sentence? It sounds crazy.
- matkoniecz 2mo agoyes, it is a big [citation needed] for me
- esseph 2mo agoSee gattr's comment above Basically GROM getting "leave" and then ending up with their whole team inside Ukraine as "contractors", just with deniability. https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/polish-mercenaries-ukrainian-assault-units https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/polish-mercenaries... Regarding efforts to provide deniability for their operations, a Polish officer informed him: “we worked out a formula for our presence in Ukraine … we were simply sent on paid leave. Politicians pretended not to see this.” The Polish Volunteer Corps has appeared to use the same model to provide cover for the mass deployment of Polish Armed Forces personnel, who are technically former personnel when entering the theatre, with their presence having for years been widely reported on multiple frontlines. In February 2026, the lower house of the Polish parliament adopted legislation to provide legal cover to Polish citizens who fought in the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian War. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/07/03/russia-planning-attack-on-poland-test-nato-resolve-us-warns/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/07/03/russia-pla... https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2026/07/12/8043770/ https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2026/07/12/8043770/ https://abcnews.com/International/wireStory/baltics-poland-warn-russia-launch-limited-military-hybrid-134779778 https://abcnews.com/International/wireStory/baltics-poland-w... Edit: Added: https://youtu.be/5RBY1cY-GF8?is=rVFFKVnBxkmsF9aM https://youtu.be/5RBY1cY-GF8?is=rVFFKVnBxkmsF9aM Pic: https://x.com/intermarium24/status/1659954927299440641 https://x.com/intermarium24/status/1659954927299440641
- squidbeak 2mo agoYou are mixing legitimate sources reporting the intelligence suggesting Russia is seeking a provocation in Poland with a Kremlin propganda channel lying about Polish commandos operating in Ukraine. https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/military-watch-magazine-bias/ https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/military-watch-magazine-bias/
- esseph 2mo agoThanks, wasn't aware of that website backing.
- justsomehnguy 2mo agoIt's always amusing when one side claims what the presence of NATO personnel in UA is "just Russian lies" only to post the confirmation of it themselves. It's even more amusing when you see pictures like this https://i.redd.it/ex4jgoqir4qg1.png https://i.redd.it/ex4jgoqir4qg1.png
- rainworld 2mo agohttps://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/celebration_parallax https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/celebration_parallax
- justsomehnguy 2mo agoNice one, thanks.
- matkoniecz 2mo ago"just Russian lies" was, at least where I have seen it, was reply to claims about whole NATO armies send to Ukraine and lost with tens of thousands killed in action Or claims that EU is freezing to death or food running out (or soon will be)
- Kubuxu 2mo agoThere are rumours that Polish GROM has been taking “vacations” in Ukraine. As in “we cannot officially approve your presence there but we won’t stop you either”, from the government.
- gattr 2mo agoI watched a related Chris Cappy video the other day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RBY1cY-GF8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RBY1cY-GF8 > Poland's elite GROM commandos have become legendary (...) in this episode, we explore (...) the covert war between Poland and Russia, and why Polish-speaking commandos are appearing inside Russian territory.
- cingraa 2mo agoOccam's razor. Decoy drones with a bit more fuel or favorable wind.
- topspin 2mo ago> These are probes. Judging responses and response times. Some, yes. Many are merely defective units. These weapons are being manufactured in enormous quantity and deployed rapidly with minimal quality control: based on the reported numbers over Ukraine, the net manufacturing rate is about 10 per hour. Inevitably, some are defective and fail to follow waypoints. Romania is on a line through numerous targets in Ukraine from the Kursk region where many Russian drone flights begin, so Romania ends up being the unintended destination. The good news is that the defects likely represent resource problems for the manufacturers. The same phenomena has been noted with increasing failed missile launches from Russia.
- cmiles8 2mo agoWe seems scarily only one rogue actor or screw up from WW III in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.
- fc417fc802 2mo agoDon't we already have that? It's just a smoulder instead of a conflagration.
- xedrac 2mo agoDo you feel threatened that Russia and Iran will succeed in conquering all of Europe and the Middle East? I see it more like a couple of misbehaving misfits. That's very different than say, WWII.
- mcv 2mo agoThe main threat to Europe is if Trump ever makes good on his threats to take Canada and Greenland. If the US turns truly hostile, then Europe has a serious problem. Especially if Putin and Trump decide they want to split Europe between the two of them. It's a very extreme case, but it would get extremely messy. Putin on his own is something Europe should easily be able to handle as long as they've got Ukraine on their side. Trump's erratic disruptive attacks will hopefully end at some point. I'm not worried about Iran at all, except internally.
- dvduval 2mo agoThe big part that I didn’t see was whether this was a Russian drone or Ukrainian drone
- ur-whale 2mo ago> I didn’t see was whether this was a Russian drone or Ukrainian drone From the france24 article: > A government investigation reportedly identified the first of the three drones as a Shahed model used by Russia in its war with Ukraine.
- rwmj 2mo agoThey're Shahed drones, used by Russia.
- romaaeterna 2mo agoIn September the Russians accused the Ukrainians of having repairing downed Geran drone airframes at the Lviv LORTA plant, transferring them to Yavoriv, and launching them unarmed into Poland. They presented various evidence like serial numbers, photographs of silver-tape repairs, claims that a Ukrainian SIM-card was used, lack of impact destruction, etc. What's true though? I don't believe that I have a way to find out.
- arcticfox 2mo agoRussian credibility is at ~zero IMO. They've put forth so many insane theories related to this war that they started. And just on first principles, how stupid would the Ukrainian have to be to do such a thing to their biggest ally? It almost beggars belief.
- daliz 2mo agoThe Nord Stream destruction was made to Europe by their big friend Ukraine.
- 2mo ago
- walrus01 2mo agoURL appears to go to home page of RO military, another URL is: https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20260726-romanian-jet-shoots-down-drone-entering-country-airspace-for-third-day-in-a-row https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20260726-romanian-jet-sho...
- close04 2mo agoThe home page shows 3 consecutive press releases for the past 3 days each detailing a similar incident. The first drone on 24.07 took ~80min to intercept and shoot down, well into the country. The other 2 were shot down within kilometers of the border so they’re paying closer attention.
- bestham 2mo agoThe asymmetry between the drones and the F16 neutralising them quickly makes this financially unsustainable.
- spiderfarmer 2mo agoI love how people are pointing this out thinking NATO countries aren’t currently doing a Manhattan-light on drone defense.
- lukan 2mo agoYes, but it also trains the pilots and everything around them for real action in a non war environment (you cannot just shoot anywhere in civilian airspace). And they would need to train anyway. But for a real conflict, sure, more economical solutions are on the way.
- AnimalMuppet 2mo agoI believe that Sun Tsu said something about using your enemy's military to train your military.
- firefax 2mo ago
- an0malous 2mo agoWhy are these drones so easy to shoot down, but the ones invading airspaces over nuclear bases and other sensitive installations hundreds of times for months all over Europe and the east coast of the US were never shot down or tracked even once?
- ozarkerD 2mo agoBecause they were being flown by their respective governments.
- an0malous 2mo agoThey shut down their own airports and military bases because their own craft were flying over them?
- rolisz 2mo agoThere are many more that are missed in Romania :)
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- Kubuxu 2mo agoBecause Shahed 131/136 are large, way larger than surveillance drone/quadcopter. We are talking 2-3m wingspans and 130-200kg launch mass.
- infinite_spin 2mo agoOne other reason, Shahed drones are preprogrammed with their target, they're not being flown by an operator who can quickly change their course. They're basically a cruise missile with propellers.
- gus_massa 2mo agoI guess because the have an explosive payload and it's better to take them down before they reach a populated area. The other drones are probably not going to cause an explosion (unles they colide with a plane) and are already in a populated area, so it's risky to destroy them.
- miohtama 2mo agoBecause Russian's war with Ukraine is unsustainable, something has to change for Putin for him to remain in power, and one option is an escalation with NATO. Some other scenarios also explained in this good video https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jDhYFSGkaAc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jDhYFSGkaAc
- anticodon 2mo agoWhat? In other words, you're saying: "Russia is losing war with Ukraine, so it wants to start a second front with bigger enemy". Also, how's Ukraine war is sustainable for Ukraine? It's economy is non-existent (almost 100% dependent on western donations), it has less than 50% of population of 2022 (they don't publish any population stats directly, but if you combine available statistics, there are about 10-15 millions left most of them old retired people or young people that are too young to send them to the front lines), they are losing territory every day. This is some weird "Ukraine is winning but front is moving in the wrong direction" logic.
- tclancy 2mo agoI think you’re misreading the comment and conflating Putin’s survival with the current war. I believe the OP is saying the administration can’t keep selling the war with Ukraine as a good idea indefinitely and will need to pivot to something more marketable. In our Internet-shaped world, everything is entertainment. This particular show has run its course and needs a pivot, add new actors, make a Very Special Episode or kill off one of the main characters.
- kasey_junk 2mo agoA war doesn’t need to be sustainable for Ukraine, it’s existential. For the aggressor that backstop doesn’t exist. They could literally stop the war anytime they wanted so they need to continue to prove it’s sustainable to keep doing it.
- mcv 2mo agoUkraine is gaining some ground, but very slowly. It's basically a stalemate. Except that Ukraine is making the war extremely costly for Russia with the recent attacks on refineries and other targets deep into Russia. As long as the EU keeps supporting them, I think Ukraine will be better able to maintain the current situation than Russia. But Ukraine is nearly as exhausted as Russia, and I think a European coalition sending real practical ground and air support would help a lot. I suspect sufficient support could force a breakthrough in southern Ukraine an liberate a very large chunk of land very quickly. The reason that's not happening is either that NATO thinks this would give Putin the excuse he needs for large scale mobilisation, or simply because Europe is afraid to get its hands dirty. I don't think the former is nearly as big an issue as some believe; Putin has never needed any action from NATO or EU members to justify escalation, and has never responded to imagined red lines getting crossed. The latter is more likely. I think Europe needs to remember the sacrifice that Canada and the US brought to liberate Europe in WW2, and recognise the moral obligation that creates to liberate others in a similar position. Like Ukraine today.
- Insanity 2mo agoGiven how poor their Ukrainian war is going, this is a strange move. I guess it’s mostly just posturing?
- cbg0 2mo agoIt offers valuable information on response time.
- benj111 2mo agoThey've been doing this for years. I don't know if it's to try and circumvent Ukrainian defenses or to provoke a reaction to sell to domestic audiences though.
- mike_hock 2mo agoMove by whom? Drones straying from the intended route is usually caused by jamming from the other side. Escalating tensions between Russia and NATO is in Ukraine's, not Russia's, interest.
- malfist 2mo agoTo strip away your rhetoric, you are saying it is Ukraine's fault for Russian drones flying into Romania.
- redleader55 2mo agoHis name indicates a troll.
- mike_hock 2mo agoThe only loaded rhetoric is coming from you, I merely stated what the incentives are. Note that the situation is somewhat symmetric in that Russia also has an incentive to misdirect Ukrainian drones toward NATO airspace (which has happened).
- exDM69 2mo ago
- sneak 2mo agoAIUI Russia has been regularly intruding into Finnish airspace and has often penetrated the land border with Georgia. It’s one of those “let’s see how much we can get away with” probes to try to establish a new status quo. I wonder how Russia would respond to NATO drones doing the same.
- squidbeak 2mo agoTurkiye demonstrated how to stop this a decade ago - shooting down the trespassing bogey. It worked.
- officialchicken 2mo agoWhat does this have to do with startups?
- firefax 2mo ago>What does this have to do with startups? You know, I used to have this style view when reading and commenting Slashdot, pre-9/11 about anything other than "the tech". Afterward, in high school, I began to feel that understanding the foundations of geopolitics can help you maintain an advantage in the business world.
- infinite_spin 2mo agoNot much, but it's interesting and I think a large population of users here are curious about drone tech
- cbg0 2mo agoCheck out the first paragraph: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- lucianbr 2mo ago> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. Seems ths qualifies in spades.
- mdp2021 2mo agoThe "interesting new phenomenon", obviously, is the potential of the generalization of what expressed in the title. It has very evidently both relevance to intellectual curiosity and a potential of impact on our activities.
- lucianbr 2mo ago> The "interesting new phenomenon", obviously, is the potential of the generalization of what expressed in the title. Why is this thing so difficult to name and you need to describe it in such a roundabout way? "Drones might be shot down a lot"? It's neither new nor an intellectual curiosity. "Drones are used for war" also not. It's been happening for years now. What is so interesting? Can you name it without references to generalizations of expressions of other references?
- petre 2mo agoTime to expell some more Russian embassy staff.
- cbg0 2mo agoAs part of the SAFE EU financial instrument Romania is spending a lot of cash on defense measures for drones and other armament[1]. Currently still relying heavily on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flakpanzer_Gepard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flakpanzer_Gepard for anti-air as well as fighter jets with air-to-air missiles, as these recent drones were all brought down by F-16s. Aside from strategic targets, a lot of the civilian infrastructure is quite vulnerable to drone attacks as there's a huge border to cover and definitely not enough anti-drone tech deployed. An apartment building was hit months ago with no casualties: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/apartment-building-hit-by-drone-romanias-galati-close-ukraine-border-radio-says-2026-05-29/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/apartment-building-hit-... [1] https://www.rheinmetall.com/en/media/news-watch/news/2026/06/2026-06-02-major-historic-contract-in-romania-worth-5-7-billion https://www.rheinmetall.com/en/media/news-watch/news/2026/06...
- sneak 2mo agoF-16s with human pilots and a2a missiles vs cheap drones? That’s one hell of an asymmetry and doesn’t seem robust enough to handle 100x the scale.
- cbg0 2mo agoIt's not meant to. That's why Ukraine receives the support it does, because they take the brunt of it.
- pantalaimon 2mo agoYea the Gepard seems like a much better fit for those cheap drones. Unfortunately it's been long discontinued and it's successor Skyranger is still facing some technical difficulties as of recent reports.
- uxhacker 2mo agoUkraine is using old training aircraft with a guy with a shotgun in the back shooting the drones down. Just think the small Cessnas and pipers littered around that could be used for a similar task. https://youtu.be/GrzzYTXgnMQ?is=zChAgYfc5ZEi25gt https://youtu.be/GrzzYTXgnMQ?is=zChAgYfc5ZEi25gt Edited out bad grammer
- comrade1234 2mo agoWith the heatwaves and drought in Europe it's probably not the best time to have flaming wreckage falling from the sky.
- squidbeak 2mo agoHasn't it occurred to you that typically when an explosive drone reaches the end of its flight, it, er.. explodes? Or that if it isn't shot down, that the last moment of its flight might kill people?
- cbg0 2mo agoIt's never a good time to have flaming wreckage fall from the sky.
- pixl97 2mo agoSome things are relitive. It's never a good time to have 10 people get killed by an explosive drone, but that may be better than a million hecter fire that kills 10,000.
- cbg0 2mo agoThe comparison is not really relevant in this case, as the area over which the drone is destroyed was taken into account on all three drone events.
- PunchyHamster 2mo ago...as opposed to it hitting the fucking target ? what are you smoking?
- bell-cot 2mo agoThe France24 article says the drone was shot down over the Black Sea.
- M95D 2mo agoRomanian here, living close to the border (~30km). There are no big forests nearby - we're safe. Some wheat fields might catch fire, but sometimes we do that intentionally anyway.
- nesarkvechnep 2mo agoI hope they don’t send any to Bulgaria. Our PM is waiting exactly this to declare we’re joining the Russian federation.
- AnimalMuppet 2mo agoHow are Russian drones entering Bulgarian territory going to give the PM the chance/excuse to join Russia?
- GTP 2mo agoI don't know if this is their case, but some politicians don't care much about their arguments making sense. In this specific case, a politician could either claim the drones come from some other country, and Russia is going to protect them, or that they need to join Russia for them to stop.
- koiueo 2mo agoThere's no logic behind russia's pretexts. In 2014-15 they started shelling civilians in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, then used that as a pretext to increase their military presence by pretending it's all local militias fighting back the shelling the ruskies themselves started. The pretext was fully fabricated, the militias theatre was fully fabricated. Nothing made sense. To anyone with a pinch if intellect the truth was obvious... Yet, the legend of Ukrainians murdering other Ukrainians for using russian language has rooted so much, even now some ppl believe that bs. In case of Bulgaria, ruskies could attack, then attack again pretending russian-speaking population needs protection in the light of the first attack. And right-wing nutheads in EU gonna believe that, and blame NATO for offensive expansion No Logic Whatsoever
- blagie 2mo ago[flagged]
- api 2mo agoAs with many conflicts this one goes back a long way. Ukraine gave up its nukes to Russia in exchange for a non aggression pact that the invasion broke. Also bad for the world. The lesson, as with Iran and Iraq, is: you’d better have nukes and never give them up. This is the opposite of the lesson we want if we want to contain proliferation. The global taboo on use remains. If someone breaks that and gets away with it we are into civilization ending danger territory.
- themgt 2mo agoIt's not World War 3. It's just two increasingly overlapping unsolvable wars involving two increasingly coherent geopolitical blocs consisting of dozens of countries spanning three continents, most major nuclear powers holding 95% of global nuclear stockpiles and the vast majority of global military spending and resources, with nuclear-capable cruise, ballistic, and hypersonic missiles flying back and forth, attacks on strategic nuclear early warning systems, threats of nuclear first-use and global nuclear holocaust, etc. Fighting over issues the leaders of the involved superpowers and great powers have described as existential and beyond compromise. Not World War 3 though, currently. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/26/ukraine-war-briefing-iran-accuses-kyiv-vessel-caspian-sea https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/26/ukraine-war-br...
- Llamamoe 2mo agoAre there enough nations on Russia's side to call them a bloc? It seems like almost everyone is supporting Ukraine.
- shigawire 2mo agoChina is a bloc unto itself
- jfengel 2mo agoIndia and China are both supporting Russia in various overt and covert ways. That's a huge fraction of the world. Iran is even more closely linked. Arguably the real reason for the American attack on Iran is to reduce their contribution to the Ukraine conflict. Plus Russia's various Toadies (which included Hungary, an EU nation, until recently)... It's a pretty sizeable bloc. It's not yet an all out Axis and Allies situation, but it's definitely not just Russia against the world.
- irishcoffee 2mo agoIndia and China are the only reasons Russia hasn’t collapsed on itself yet. Much to the detriment of a country that had no interest in being invaded.
- dfasifsaf 2mo ago[flagged]
- beaker52 2mo ago“Dear Mr Putin, Please don’t use our airspace to attack Ukraine else we will be forced to write you another slightly more strongly worded letter next time. Thanks, NATO”
- paganel 2mo agoIt's all a sham so that we, Romania, would be dragged into this war. That will only mean the end of the comprador regime currently ruling over us, but until then most probably many of us, Romanian men, will get killed "defending" the Western regime. Such is life, i.e. requiring sacrifices.
- itsmeagainhere 2mo ago[flagged]
- throwuxiytayq 2mo agoHello, this is Vladimir Putin. You are, of course, being correct and useful in your comment. Thank you for clearing up these misunderstandings about our three-day defensive special operation maneuver.
- itsmeagainhere 2mo agoContinue to negate what is before your eyes (if you care to look, that is).
- throwuxiytayq 2mo agoVery not false! Those who decline to cease to negate the negation of the existence of the country of Ukraine risk getting negated by falling out of a window of a high-story building. This is a not so rare occurrence, so beware.
- eth0up 2mo agoHow's Kolomoyskyi doing? Any skyscrapers at his ski club? Or would one of the lifts do?
- znnajdla 2mo agoI’m Ukrainian. I upvoted your comment because I want to show more people how this kind of thinking is mistaken. This kind of logic is very common in those who don’t support Ukraine: they think NATO is “using” Ukraine to fight Russia. They somehow forget that Ukrainians are willingly fighting to defend their own country — NATO can’t “use” a people who are unwilling to fight on their own. (Sure some of my friends have been unwillingly conscripted but that is normal human weakness, that is not evidence that Ukrainians don’t want to defend Ukraine). If I helped a friend fight off their enemy am I “using” the friend? I saw with my own eyes the thousands of Ukrainians who lined up to fight (and continue to do so) to defend their home country. Sure NATO is supporting us because that’s what allies do, and of course we wish for their increased support. However NATO is not “using” us against our will — they have no ability to compel us to do that. Sure NATO is already waging war against Russia, but Russia started it.