The Russian embassy in Romania has said a drone incursion in Romanian airspace was a "provocation" by Ukraine after Moscow's envoy was summoned by the foreign ministry in Bucharest over the incident.
Ambassador Vladimir Lipayev said Romania's charge that Russia was responsible for the intrusion was "unfounded".
An embassy statement said: "All the facts lead one to believe that it was a deliberate provocation by the Kiev regime."
Romania scrambled fighter jets on Saturday when a drone breached the country's airspace during a Russian attack on Ukrainian infrastructure near the border.
Defence Minister Ionut Mosteanu said the F-16 pilots came close to taking down the drone as it was flying very low before it left national airspace toward Ukraine.
A threat of drone strikes also prompted Poland to deploy aircraft and close an airport in the eastern city of Lublin on Saturday, three days after it shot down Russian drones in its airspace with the backing of aircraft from its NATO allies.
Romania, a European Union and NATO state which shares a 650-km (400-mile) border with Ukraine, has had Russian drone fragments fall onto its territory repeatedly since Russia began waging war on its neighbour.
On Saturday, it scrambled two F-16 fighter jets and later two Eurofighters — part of German air policing missions in Romania — and warned citizens in the southeastern county of Tulcea near the Danube and its Ukrainian border to take cover, the defence ministry said in a statement.
It added that the jets detected a drone in national airspace, which they followed until it dropped off the radar 20 km southwest of the village of Chilia Veche.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on social media platform X that data showed the drone breached about 10 kilometres into Romanian territory and operated in NATO airspace for around 50 minutes.
"It is an obvious expansion of the war by Russia – and this is exactly how they act," he said. “Sanctions against Russia are needed. Tariffs against Russian trade are needed. Collective defence is needed."
NATO announced plans to beef up the defence of Europe's eastern flank on Friday, after Poland shot down drones that had violated its airspace, the first known shots fired by a member of the Western alliance during Russia's war in Ukraine.
