Two F18 fighters from the Spanish Air Force, stationed at the Mihail Kogalniceanu base as part of NATO's Air Policing mission, were activated last night to track a group of "aerial targets" operating north of the Ukrainian locality of Chilia Veche, very close to the border with Romania.
As noted by the Romanian Ministry of Defense on the social network X, a radar from that country located this group of "aerial targets" and the authorities issued an alert directed at the population at 04:41 hours (local time).
The Spanish F18s took off to monitor the evolution of the situation, although the air alarm was declared over at 05:44 hours (local time) and no violations of national airspace have been reported.
Spain participates in this NATO operation on Romanian territory with about 200 military personnel, seven F18s, one A400M aircraft, and one radar system. Three NH90 helicopters will join this deployment in October. The activity of Russian drones in the vicinity of allied airspace has notably increased, to the point that the Spanish Armed Forces have recorded 18 alerts between August and the current month of September in the mission in Romania.
In this context, two Spanish fighters already shot down one of these unmanned devices that had entered Romanian airspace on August 16.