Romanian authorities issue shelter alert after radar detects aerial target near Ukraine border

Romania’s air defense systems detected a new aerial target near the Ukrainian border on Tuesday, prompting authorities to issue a RO-Alert warning for residents in northern Tulcea County to seek shelter due to the risk of falling objects.
The Ministry of National Defense (MApN) reported that radar systems identified the target at approximately 4 km east of Vâlcove, near the frontier with Ukraine, at around 7:00 a.m. Two Spanish Air and Space Force F-18 fighter jets stationed at the 57th Air Base Mihail Kogălniceanu were scrambled to monitor the situation. The National Military Command Center notified the Inspectorate for Emergency Situations, which triggered the RO-Alert message at 7:31 a.m., advising residents to remain in basements or civil protection shelters—or, if unavailable, indoors and away from windows and exterior walls. The alert was estimated to last 90 minutes .
This follows a similar incident late Monday, when MApN detected two aerial targets about 25 km northwest of Snake Island, moving toward Romania’s border. Two F-18 jets were again deployed, and a RO-Alert was issued at 10:55 p.m. for northern Tulcea. The contacts vanished from radar at 10:58 p.m., with explosions later reported on the Ukrainian side. No incursions into Romanian airspace were confirmed .
Earlier on Monday, a drone entered Romanian airspace from Moldova, triggering a RO-Alert in Galați County. The drone was later found in Ciușlea, Vrancea County, after crashing near a residence. MApN confirmed the drone carried no explosive payload and likely originated from the same incident detected over Moldova’s Cahul region that morning. Local authorities evacuated a 300-meter radius around the crash site as a precaution .
Interim Defense Minister Radu Miruță stated that such incidents should not be treated as normal, emphasizing ongoing discussions with Ukrainian counterparts and diplomatic channels. “It is not acceptable what is happening, and we are not in this situation just because the number of such cases is increasing, we get used to them, and we accept them as such,” Miruță said .
Separately, a magnitude 4.4 earthquake struck the Vrancea-Buzău seismic zone at 4:56 a.m. on Tuesday, at a depth of 145.2 km, according to the National Institute for Earth Physics. The quake was felt in Bucharest and occurred near Focșani, Sfântu-Gheorghe, Buzău, Brașov, and Ploiești. It is the 19th earthquake recorded in Romania this August, with magnitudes ranging from 2.2 to 4.3 .
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