Romanian F-16s Shoot Down Two Jet-Powered Geran Drones Over the Black Sea Near Sulina

Two Romanian Air Force F-16 fighters have shot down a pair of jet-powered Geran family attack drones over Romania’s Black Sea territorial waters off the port of Sulina, the most significant engagement yet in a run of interceptions that began only in July. The Romanian Ministry of National Defence reported on October 17 that the fighters, on air policing alert at the 86th Air Base at Borcea, took off at 17:43 after radar detected targets around 120 kilometres east of Snake Island. The first drone entered national airspace at 17:59 and was destroyed two minutes later about 25 kilometres southeast of Sulina, while the second was downed at 18:05 around 20 kilometres east of the town. The engagement highlights how far Romania has moved from tracking intruders, with the ministry stating it was continuously adapting its procedures.

Interim Defence Minister Radu Miruță wrote on Facebook that the first drone “was shot down within 2 minutes,” adding: “Congratulations, colleagues! Nothing we have worked for so far is in vain!” The ministry did not state the drones’ origin or which weapons the pilots used, although its identification of the targets as Geran series drones points to Russia, which produces the design under that name. The shootdowns followed a week in which Romanian radar tracked aerial targets in Ukrainian airspace near the border on eight occasions, with drones briefly crossing into Romanian airspace in four of them without being engaged. Two chemical tankers anchored near the Sulina Canal, an export route for Ukraine, were also struck during the week by drones that a NATO military source told Reuters were Russian, with seven crew members still missing.

Romania recorded dozens of drone incursions after February 2022 without downing one over its own territory, until a Romanian F-16 operating alongside two Italian Eurofighter Typhoons on NATO air policing duty destroyed a Shahed type drone with an air-to-air missile over Buzău County on July 24. President Nicușor Dan described it as the country’s first interception of an intruding aircraft since the war began. A second drone was downed over territorial waters in the Sulina area on July 26, and Romanian outlet HotNews counted four unmanned aircraft shot down over the country during the summer, meaning Saturday’s pair bring the total to six. A Romanian F-16 had also destroyed a drone over Estonia on May 19 while deployed to the Baltic air policing mission. The pressure on Romania mirrors the much larger strain Russian strikes have placed on Ukraine’s own defences, which have repeatedly run short of interceptors.

The jet-powered model, widely known as the Geran-3, is derived from Iran’s Shahed-238 and is considerably harder to intercept than the propeller-driven Geran-2, with Ukrainian military estimates citing typical speeds of 300 to 370 kilometres per hour, a range of about 1,000 kilometres and a warhead of around 50 kilograms. Firing air-to-air missiles at such targets remains expensive, a gap the U.S. Army hopes to close with cheaper counter-drone weapons it does not expect to field before 2028. Romania’s fleet of F-16AM/BM fighters is built around 17 aircraft bought from Portugal and 32 ordered from Norway, while the government approved the purchase of 32 F-35A fifth generation fighters in November 2024, with deliveries expected to begin in 2031. Portugal itself is now weighing the F-35 as a replacement for its remaining F-16s.