At night in Galati, a strike was heard — not against Ukraine, but against Romania. A Russian drone fell in the residential neighborhood of Bariera-Trayana, and when sappers approached closer, it turned out: the unmanned aircraft was carrying explosives. 220 people were evacuated, the neighborhood was cordoned off with a 200-meter radius perimeter, and police, gendarmes, and rescue services were deployed.

A Repeating Route

Galati is a port city on the Danube, a few kilometers from Odesa region. It is along the Danube that Russian kamikaze drones most often deviate or get lost after attacks on Ukrainian port facilities. According to Gordon UA, wreckage from unmanned aircraft in Romania is being recorded increasingly often — and this incident in Galati is not the first: local residents have already reported objects falling in the same area during previous attacks.

According to Defense Post, in recent months alone Romania has scrambled fighter jets several times — sometimes F-16s, sometimes British RAF Eurofighter Typhoons — to track intruders. But not a single drone over Romanian territory has been shot down: either it managed to leave airspace, or the order to strike did not arrive in time.

Law Exists — System Does Not

In May 2025, Romania finally passed a law allowing its armed forces to shoot down unmanned aircraft that illegally cross the border. But the existence of a legal norm and actual capability to act are different things.

"Almost every week we scramble aircraft into the air — either ours or our German partners'"

Romania's Ministry of Defense, September 2025

The answer to this gap is the Merops system, an AI interceptor from Project Eagle, supported by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. According to Defense Minister Radu Miruca, after two weeks of testing under NATO auspices at a base near the Black Sea, the system was supposed to come on duty "within days." The main goal of deployment is precisely the Danube. But while Merops was being tested, a drone with explosives was already lying in a Galati courtyard.

What This Means for NATO

Galati is not some remote border outpost — it is a city with a population of over 200,000 people, a major shipbuilding center. Evacuating a neighborhood because of a combat drone on the street is not "debris," it is an incident of a different level of threat. As noted by Al Arabiya English, Romania has not yet shot down a drone in peacetime, although the law now allows it.

• Romania borders Ukraine for 650 km — the longest land border among NATO countries on this flank
• Airspace violations have also been recorded by Moldova, Poland, and the Baltic states
• The EU, according to Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius, is "not ready" for a massive drone attack

The question is not whether Merops will appear over the Danube — it will. The question is whether Romania will manage to deploy actual patrols by the next night, when Russia attacks Odesa again and another drone goes off course over a residential neighborhood.