For the first known time, a Romanian fighter jet has fired on and destroyed a drone that violated the country's airspace. The intercept happened during a large Russian overnight attack on Ukraine that pushed some of the explosive drones toward the Romanian border. Bucharest has not said where the drone came from.

Russia's missiles and explosive drones batter Ukrainian homes and civilian infrastructure night after night, and some of those drones wander across borders into NATO states, where allied jets only lately opened fire after years of merely tracking them.

A pilot, an empty field, and an air-to-air missile

Romanian President Nicușor Dan announced the shootdown on X, saying a pilot flying an F-16 downed the drone around 11:00 on 24 July 2026. He noted the target fell over an uninhabited area, so the pilot could fire without endangering anyone below. 

"At present, specialist teams from the relevant agencies are surveying the area to establish all the circumstances of the incident," Dan said some 30 minutes after the strike.

Romania's Defense Ministry detailed the sequence. Radar detected the drone at 09:39, roughly 20 km east of Sulina in the Danube delta. It then entered national airspace and flew a Sulina–Brăila–Fetești–Buzău route. Two Italian Air Force Eurofighter Typhoon jets on a NATO air policing mission from Mihail Kogălniceanu airbase went up, along with two Romanian F-16s from the 86th airbase at Fetești. At 11:02, one of the Romanian jets struck the drone with an air-to-air missile over an uninhabited area near Padina, in Buzău county.

The drone's flight path points to the Black Sea as its way in — the same route Russian drones tend to take when they go after the nearby Ukrainian Danube port of Izmail.

Until now, Romanian jets had only escorted a Russian drone near the Ukrainian border until it disappeared from radars. Overnight on 29 May, during a Russian attack on Odesa Oblast, a Geran-2 drone crashed into a 10-story residential building in Galați, hospitalizing two people and forcing 70 to evacuate.

Russia's overnight barrage on Ukraine

The intercept coincided with one of Russia's mass overnight strikes. Ukraine's Air Force reported that Russia launched 180 strike drones — Shahed types, including jet-powered ones, plus Gerbera, Italmas, and Parodiya decoy drones — and five X-59/69 guided missiles by preliminary count from the Black Sea areas, Russian regions and occupied territory. By 08:00, air defenses had downed or suppressed 160 drones and four missiles, though one missile and 14 drones hit across nine locations.

In Odesa Oblast, a Russian strike on a residential sector injured a woman and a child overnight, damaging an apartment roof, homes, cars, and an enterprise, the head of the Odesa Oblast military administration, Oleh Kiper, reported. 

"The residential sector and industrial infrastructure were struck. Unfortunately, a woman and a 4-year-old child were injured," he said. 

Farther south, Russia hit the Izmail district — the part of Odesa Oblast bordering Romania — damaging homes and a business without casualties, the district military administration said.

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Russian aerial bombs struck Izium in Kharkiv Oblast, hitting a Nova Poshta parcel depot and cutting power to part of the district. Four Geran drones set a boarding house in Radychiv, Chernihiv Oblast, ablaze, and the State Emergency Service noted the site was not in use. An evening attack damaged a house and an enterprise in Kirovohrad Oblast, without casualties, the regional administration said.

Ukraine's plan to buy 16 French-made Rafale fighter jets remains unsigned, the aircraft's manufacturer said. France has yet to lock down either the terms of the purchase or how it will be paid for. The comments put a hard limit on a deal that European leaders had unveiled with fanfare 10 days earlier.

No signature, no financing

Dassault Aviation chief executive Éric Trappier addressed the deal at the company's half-year results, French daily Le Figaro reported. Trappier said Ukraine had expressed an intention to buy 16 Rafales, but the contract was not signed. The French state, he said, still had to formalize the deal and its financing.

Dassault handed over 12 Rafales to customers in the first half of 2026. Ten went to foreign clients, and two went to the French military. A year earlier, the company delivered seven over the same period, four of them abroad. The company booked no new firm Rafale orders at all in the first half of 2026. 

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Where the Rafale sits in Ukraine's jet plans

The Rafale is the least-settled of Ukraine's three Western fighter tracks. Kyiv's pilots already fly American F-16s, delivered since August 2024, and are due their first Swedish Gripens in early 2027. Sixteen older Gripen C/D jets are set to arrive first, with a larger buy of newer models to follow.

The French jets sit further out. France set their delivery for 2028-2029, which would make the Rafale the last of the three types to enter Ukrainian service. Kyiv is assembling all three at once to retire its Soviet-era fleet, a mix that stretches pilot training and maintenance across incompatible aircraft.

Editor's note: This is a developing story and is being updated.

A Russian SU-25 fighter jet reportedly crashed over Donetsk Oblast on June 13, Russian social media channels reported.

Videos posted on social media of the purported crash by bloggers with close ties to the Russian Air Force appear to show the plane crashing into a field after closely being followed by another fighter jet. The circumstances of the crash remain unclear as rumours swirl of Russian 'friendly fire' as a potential cause of the crash.

The Kyiv Independent cannot independently verify the crash or the details surrounding it. Neither the Ukrainian nor Russian military have commented on the reported crash.

The Su-25, a Soviet-designed close-air support aircraft developed by Sukhoi in the late 1970s, is built for battlefield survivability. It features heavy armor and can withstand enemy fire.

The aircraft has been widely used in various conflicts, including in Afghanistan, Chechnya, and, more recently, in Ukraine, where both Russian and Ukrainian forces operate the platform.

Ukraine has downed multiple Russian Su-25s throughout the war. On Feb. 8, Ukraine's military reported shooting down a Russian Su-25 near the town of Toretsk in Donetsk Oblast.

In another instance, Russia's Defense Ministry said on on March 24 that Russian Su-25 attack aircraft crashed during a routine training flight in Primorye Krai in Russia's Far East.

The incident comes less than two week following Ukraine's 'Operation Spiderweb' in which Ukrainian drones smuggled deep inside Russia and hidden inside trucks struck as many as 41 Russian heavy bombers at four airfields across the country.

Ukraine war latest: Ukrainian MiG-29 strikes Russian drone hub, ammo depot in Zaporizhzhia direction, releases video

Key developments on June 13: * Ukrainian MiG-29 strikes Russian drone hub, ammo depot in Zaporizhzhia direction, releases video * Ukrainian military denies NYT claims about Russian presence in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast * Russia preparing strategic reserves for conflicts beyond Ukraine, Ukraine warns * Ukraine repatriates bodies of 1,200 citizens, soldiers under Istanbul deal

The Kyiv IndependentThe Kyiv Independent news desk