The Minister of Defense, Ionuț Moșteanu, stated that Romanians need to get used to "incidents" like the one on Saturday in Tulcea County, when a drone from the Russian Federation entered national airspace.
"There is a legal framework to shoot down drones. After I became minister, I signed a Ministerial Order clarifying that in the case of drones entering Romanian airspace, the command to shoot them down is given by the operation chief, the military chief, the military commander of the operation. We have this framework and it was used yesterday; the pilots had approval when they visually identified it. They saw that it was a Russian drone and had approval to shoot it down, but from there it was the decision of the operation commanders and the pilots whether to use the onboard weaponry to shoot down the drone. I spoke today with one of the two pilots, the mission commander; we discussed these aspects to clarify the mission report. I trust their judgment. It’s easy to say from Bucharest, from the couch, that they should have shot, but it’s a complicated and important decision that can have consequences that no one would want. The fact that it ended well shows that they made a wise decision," Ionuț Moșteanu also stated.
Sources