Romanian President Klaus Iohannis on Tuesday said attacks are occurring close to Romania’s border with Ukraine but no drone or other device landed in Romania during a weekend attack by Russian forces on Ukrainian port infrastructure, according to RFE/RL.
“I can tell you that there was no part, and no drone and no other part of any device that arrived in Romania. We have total control over our national space,” Klaus said, echoing comments a day earlier by the Romanian Defense Ministry.
“I checked absolutely everything and I can reassure the population that there was nothing that reached Romania,” Iohannis told a joint press conference with Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel.
Iohannis added that the Romanian authorities are monitoring the attacks that take place just a few hundred meters from the border.
“We had attacks just today that were verified at 800 meters from our border. So very, very close. However, we are alert and within NATO we are very well defended,” he said, speaking from the Cincu military base in central Romania.
Bucharest has strongly condemned the Russian attacks on Ukraine’s Danube infrastructure, but its Defense Ministry on Monday denied a Ukrainian Foreign Ministry claim that at least one Russian drone launched during an overnight attack fell and detonated on Romanian territory.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry still claims that one of the drones Russia launched in the air strike over the weekend hit across the Danube River.
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba pointed to photos that show that Russian equipment fell in Romania.
“There is no point in denying that something fell there,” Kuleba said.
Since the collapse in July of the United Nations-brokered deal allowing the safe passage of grain shipments from Black Sea ports, Moscow has ramped up attacks on the Odesa and Mykolayiv regions in southern Ukraine along with their ports and infrastructure.