The drone that left Ukraine and crashed in the Croatian capital Zagreb flew over Romania for three minutes and the “evolution” in the national airspace did not allow the use of other measures, the Romanian Ministry of Defense explained.
“Regarding the information on the evolution in the airspace of Romania, during the night of Thursday, March 10, of an unmanned aircraft, we make the following clarifications: Romania’s airspace surveillance system spotted on Thursday, March 10, a small aerial object, most likely an unmanned aerial vehicle (drone), which evolved in the national airspace for a very short period of time, under three minutes. The aircraft entered the Romanian airspace, coming from Ukraine, around 23.23 and left the national airspace around 23.26, heading to Hungary. The evolution of this air object for a very short time in the national airspace, the high speed, the low flight altitude, associated with the rugged relief and the weather conditions at that time, did not allow the use of other procedural measures to identify in flight this air object,” says a press release by the Romanian Ministry of Defense.
The military drone that probably belongs to the Ukrainian army passed through the airspace of Romania, Hungary and Croatia on Thursday night, crashing in Zagreb, where it caused an explosion that scared the inhabitants of the Croatian capital, without any casualties.
“It came to Croatia from Hungary and to Romania from Romania. He flew to Croatia for a few minutes and then fell,” said Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic.
According to an expert on The Drive, “publicly released images suggest that it was a Soviet-made Tupolev Tu-141 ‘Strizh’ reconnaissance drone.”
On Saturday, Croatian PM has slammed NATO’s lack of reaction in the drone case.
“It is clear that the reaction has not been good, nor has the level of danger been estimated, nor has it been communicated with other countries in a prompt and prompt manner (…) This is an incident that should not be repeated,” said Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, quoted by AFP. “It’s a test from which we should all learn a lot and react much better,” he added.