The plane of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky nearly collided with a drone during takeoff on its way from Moldova to Norway, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere told the broadcaster NRK on Sept. 9, as quoted by Reuters. Stoere did not specify the source of this information nor how close the drone had come to Zelensky’s plane.
“His plane was nearly hit by a drone as it was about to take off from Moldova. That’s the reality he’s facing,” Stoere said.
On Sept. 8, Zelensky flew to Oslo for King Harald V’s funeral and met with Stoere that same evening. The Norwegian government’s official statement on the talks does not mention the drone incident.
Around the same time, a drone flew over Moldova and Romania; Moldovan authorities initially identified the object as a Shahed of the sort commonly used by Russian forces. According to Moldova’s Defense Ministry, the aircraft entered the country’s airspace from Ukraine at 4:20 p.m., headed through the Chisinau area toward Romania, and left Moldovan territory 17 minutes later.
Romania’s Ministry of Defense said that at 4:33 p.m. its radars detected an aerial target west of Chisinau, and at 4:37 p.m. it entered Romanian airspace roughly 30 kilometers southeast of Iasi. Two Spanish F-18s were scrambled to track the drone, which advanced further into Romania, reaching the vicinity of Roman before turning back. It was detected again over Moldova at 5:08 p.m. The aircraft eventually crashed near the village of Mihaileni Vechi, roughly 25 kilometers from the Romanian border.
On Sept. 9, Moldovan police said that the debris found at the site featured a turbojet engine and other elements characteristic of UAVs commonly used by Russia. The impact caused an explosion that left a large crater; at the scene, investigators found shrapnel in the form of metal balls. Experts are still determining the drone’s exact type and the size of its warhead. No casualties were reported.
The OSINT project Oko Hora (Eye of Horus) ✙ News and Analysis claims that the UAV was a jet-powered Geran-4 that had flown about 500 kilometers over Moldova and Romania at an altitude of 7,000-8,000 meters before it ran out of fuel and crashed.
Violations of Romanian airspace by Russian drones have happened before. Since the start of the full-scale war, the country’s Ministry of Defense has recorded 45 unauthorized drone incursions — 26 of them in 2026. In July, Romanian troops destroyed three drones over the course of three days, and in late May a Russian Geran-2 crashed into a residential building in Galati, injuring two people.
