https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/21/romania-russia-ukraine-drone-gas-nato.html
Romania’s president has accused Russia of deploying a marine drone that its military destroyed on Thursday after it was spotted close to a major natural gas development.
In a series of Facebook posts, Romanian defense minister Radu-Dinel Miruţă said F-16 fighter jets destroyed a marine drone in the vicinity of the Neptun Deep gas project in the Black Sea on Thursday.
Once developed, Neptun Deep will make Romania the largest natural gas producer in the European Union. Located around 99 miles off the coast, the platform is expected to begin producing gas in 2027.
Ukraine knows which drones are theirs, and recently setup a dedicated hotline for Romania to be able to identify any Ukrainian drones promptly.
Ukraine said it wasn't one of theirs (and they've had no qualms taking credit for their own off-course drones before – they want to recover them to be able to do failure analysis).
Unless some third county is getting into the sea drone business, this is definitely Russian. Officials are just too cowardly to admit that Russia is scoping them out for an attack.
Is there any benefit for them to admitting the drones were theirs?