As part of the SAFE EU financial instrument Romania is spending a lot of cash on defense measures for drones and other armament[1]. Currently still relying heavily on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flakpanzer_Gepard for anti-air as well as fighter jets with air-to-air missiles, as these recent drones were all brought down by F-16s.
Aside from strategic targets, a lot of the civilian infrastructure is quite vulnerable to drone attacks as there's a huge border to cover and definitely not enough anti-drone tech deployed. An apartment building was hit months ago with no casualties: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/apartment-building-hit-...
France24 does a lot of very solid work related to one of my particular areas of interest in the Iran/Afghanistan/Pakistan region. It's also a great alternative to any US news sources even for news about what's going on domestically in North America (though the CBC has more breadth of coverage, for sure).
The home page shows 3 consecutive press releases for the past 3 days each detailing a similar incident.
The first drone on 24.07 took ~80min to intercept and shoot down, well into the country. The other 2 were shot down within kilometers of the border so they’re paying closer attention.
Yes, but it also trains the pilots and everything around them for real action in a non war environment (you cannot just shoot anywhere in civilian airspace).
And they would need to train anyway.
But for a real conflict, sure, more economical solutions are on the way.
Why are these drones so easy to shoot down, but the ones invading airspaces over nuclear bases and other sensitive installations hundreds of times for months all over Europe and the east coast of the US were never shot down or tracked even once?
One other reason, Shahed drones are preprogrammed with their target, they're not being flown by an operator who can quickly change their course. They're basically a cruise missile with propellers.
I guess because the have an explosive payload and it's better to take them down before they reach a populated area.
The other drones are probably not going to cause an explosion (unles they colide with a plane) and are already in a populated area, so it's risky to destroy them.
> The amount of fuel decides how far they fly. Favorable wind? They fly further.
Is this true for non-decoy non-foam drones and basically everything else that flies, even things with solid boosters? Seems like a strange part to add here as it basically applies to aviation in general, replace "fuel" with "stored energy" and literally all type of "vehicle" fits basically.
Putin's only option is to escalate at this point, otherwise he's seen as weak with the war going so well. The Romanians should also be really getting their act together and start shooting the bogeys down.
Turkey didn't think twice before shooting down a Russian Su-24 in 2015 for violating Turkish airspace for about 17 seconds. This is how you "negotiate" with the Russians: first you break their nose when cross some red line, then appologize.
Because Russian's war with Ukraine is unsustainable, something has to change for Putin for him to remain in power, and one option is an escalation with NATO.
Some other scenarios also explained in this good video
Luckily being 73 and in what appears to be poor health can’t last forever. I can’t imagine spending my twilight years being one of the most hated people on the planet, but the head of the USA and Russia seem to have no issues with that.
Hoping for Putin to get sick is unhelpful. Trump is still in power well past 80, after all. We would do better to plan for a future where Putin rules Russia for another 10-15 years.
What? In other words, you're saying: "Russia is losing war with Ukraine, so it wants to start a second front with bigger enemy".
Also, how's Ukraine war is sustainable for Ukraine? It's economy is non-existent (almost 100% dependent on western donations), it has less than 50% of population of 2022 (they don't publish any population stats directly, but if you combine available statistics, there are about 10-15 millions left most of them old retired people or young people that are too young to send them to the front lines), they are losing territory every day.
This is some weird "Ukraine is winning but front is moving in the wrong direction" logic.
A war doesn’t need to be sustainable for Ukraine, it’s existential. For the aggressor that backstop doesn’t exist. They could literally stop the war anytime they wanted so they need to continue to prove it’s sustainable to keep doing it.
Ukraine is gaining some ground, but very slowly. It's basically a stalemate. Except that Ukraine is making the war extremely costly for Russia with the recent attacks on refineries and other targets deep into Russia.
As long as the EU keeps supporting them, I think Ukraine will be better able to maintain the current situation than Russia. But Ukraine is nearly as exhausted as Russia, and I think a European coalition sending real practical ground and air support would help a lot. I suspect sufficient support could force a breakthrough in southern Ukraine an liberate a very large chunk of land very quickly.
The reason that's not happening is either that NATO thinks this would give Putin the excuse he needs for large scale mobilisation, or simply because Europe is afraid to get its hands dirty. I don't think the former is nearly as big an issue as some believe; Putin has never needed any action from NATO or EU members to justify escalation, and has never responded to imagined red lines getting crossed.
The latter is more likely. I think Europe needs to remember the sacrifice that Canada and the US brought to liberate Europe in WW2, and recognise the moral obligation that creates to liberate others in a similar position. Like Ukraine today.
I think you’re misreading the comment and conflating Putin’s survival with the current war. I believe the OP is saying the administration can’t keep selling the war with Ukraine as a good idea indefinitely and will need to pivot to something more marketable. In our Internet-shaped world, everything is entertainment. This particular show has run its course and needs a pivot, add new actors, make a Very Special Episode or kill off one of the main characters.
It is Anders Puck Nielsen who is a serious military researcher and commentator. He is a go-to by any television channel in Denmark and has been from the start of the war.
Do you feel threatened that Russia and Iran will succeed in conquering all of Europe and the Middle East? I see it more like a couple of misbehaving misfits. That's very different than say, WWII.
The main threat to Europe is if Trump ever makes good on his threats to take Canada and Greenland. If the US turns truly hostile, then Europe has a serious problem. Especially if Putin and Trump decide they want to split Europe between the two of them.
It's a very extreme case, but it would get extremely messy. Putin on his own is something Europe should easily be able to handle as long as they've got Ukraine on their side. Trump's erratic disruptive attacks will hopefully end at some point. I'm not worried about Iran at all, except internally.
Fortunatly Trump won’t be a major problem for long. I’m more worried about the techbro community who want to usher in a neo-feudal empire based around resource control.
My read on the situation is that Putin knows that he's stuck, and baiting nato into some (likely tepid) response gives him an excuse to expand the next call up / draft.
AIUI Russia has been regularly intruding into Finnish airspace and has often penetrated the land border with Georgia.
It’s one of those “let’s see how much we can get away with” probes to try to establish a new status quo. I wonder how Russia would respond to NATO drones doing the same.
> These are probes. Judging responses and response times.
Some, yes. Many are merely defective units. These weapons are being manufactured in enormous quantity and deployed rapidly with minimal quality control: based on the reported numbers over Ukraine, the net manufacturing rate is about 10 per hour. Inevitably, some are defective and fail to follow waypoints. Romania is on a line through numerous targets in Ukraine from the Kursk region where many Russian drone flights begin, so Romania ends up being the unintended destination.
The good news is that the defects likely represent resource problems for the manufacturers. The same phenomena has been noted with increasing failed missile launches from Russia.
> Poland's elite GROM commandos have become legendary (...) in this episode, we explore (...) the covert war between Poland and Russia, and why Polish-speaking commandos are appearing inside Russian territory.
There are rumours that Polish GROM has been taking “vacations” in Ukraine.
As in “we cannot officially approve your presence there but we won’t stop you either”, from the government.
Regarding efforts to provide deniability for their operations, a Polish officer informed him: “we worked out a formula for our presence in Ukraine … we were simply sent on paid leave. Politicians pretended not to see this.” The Polish Volunteer Corps has appeared to use the same model to provide cover for the mass deployment of Polish Armed Forces personnel, who are technically former personnel when entering the theatre, with their presence having for years been widely reported on multiple frontlines. In February 2026, the lower house of the Polish parliament adopted legislation to provide legal cover to Polish citizens who fought in the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian War.
In September the Russians accused the Ukrainians of having repairing downed Geran drone airframes at the Lviv LORTA plant, transferring them to Yavoriv, and launching them unarmed into Poland. They presented various evidence like serial numbers, photographs of silver-tape repairs, claims that a Ukrainian SIM-card was used, lack of impact destruction, etc.
What's true though? I don't believe that I have a way to find out.
As part of the SAFE EU financial instrument Romania is spending a lot of cash on defense measures for drones and other armament[1]. Currently still relying heavily on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flakpanzer_Gepard for anti-air as well as fighter jets with air-to-air missiles, as these recent drones were all brought down by F-16s.
Aside from strategic targets, a lot of the civilian infrastructure is quite vulnerable to drone attacks as there's a huge border to cover and definitely not enough anti-drone tech deployed. An apartment building was hit months ago with no casualties: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/apartment-building-hit-...
[1] https://www.rheinmetall.com/en/media/news-watch/news/2026/06...
I hope they don’t send any to Bulgaria. Our PM is waiting exactly this to declare we’re joining the Russian federation.
URL appears to go to home page of RO military, another URL is: https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20260726-romanian-jet-sho...
Nice to see a France24 link in the wild, it is a very underrated news outlet
France24 does a lot of very solid work related to one of my particular areas of interest in the Iran/Afghanistan/Pakistan region. It's also a great alternative to any US news sources even for news about what's going on domestically in North America (though the CBC has more breadth of coverage, for sure).
Just keep in mind that's literally owned by the French government.
That’s probably a factor in why it’s able to maintain such high quality.
Though most French commercial media are not bad, either.
I think it is not owned by the government, rather by the state.
In a democracy, how is this a bad thing?
Yeah, just like the BBC is owned by the British government. Less clickbait and scaremongering, I guess.
The home page shows 3 consecutive press releases for the past 3 days each detailing a similar incident.
The first drone on 24.07 took ~80min to intercept and shoot down, well into the country. The other 2 were shot down within kilometers of the border so they’re paying closer attention.
The asymmetry between the drones and the F16 neutralising them quickly makes this financially unsustainable.
Yes, but it also trains the pilots and everything around them for real action in a non war environment (you cannot just shoot anywhere in civilian airspace).
And they would need to train anyway.
But for a real conflict, sure, more economical solutions are on the way.
I love how people are pointing this out thinking NATO countries aren’t currently doing a Manhattan-light on drone defense.
Why are these drones so easy to shoot down, but the ones invading airspaces over nuclear bases and other sensitive installations hundreds of times for months all over Europe and the east coast of the US were never shot down or tracked even once?
Because Shahed 131/136 are large, way larger than surveillance drone/quadcopter. We are talking 2-3m wingspans and 130-200kg launch mass.
One other reason, Shahed drones are preprogrammed with their target, they're not being flown by an operator who can quickly change their course. They're basically a cruise missile with propellers.
I guess because the have an explosive payload and it's better to take them down before they reach a populated area.
The other drones are probably not going to cause an explosion (unles they colide with a plane) and are already in a populated area, so it's risky to destroy them.
Because they were being flown by their respective governments.
There are many more that are missed in Romania :)
Given how poor their Ukrainian war is going, this is a strange move. I guess it’s mostly just posturing?
It offers valuable information on response time.
These are cheap decoy foam drones with less electronics. The amount of fuel decides how far they fly. Favorable wind? They fly further.
> The amount of fuel decides how far they fly. Favorable wind? They fly further.
Is this true for non-decoy non-foam drones and basically everything else that flies, even things with solid boosters? Seems like a strange part to add here as it basically applies to aviation in general, replace "fuel" with "stored energy" and literally all type of "vehicle" fits basically.
It is ye olde reconnaisance by the tip of the bayonet. How long can you prod before someone says "ouch!"
For the case of a hot war, knowing the detection and destruction capabilities of your future enemy is valuable.
They've been doing this for years.
I don't know if it's to try and circumvent Ukrainian defenses or to provoke a reaction to sell to domestic audiences though.
Putin's only option is to escalate at this point, otherwise he's seen as weak with the war going so well. The Romanians should also be really getting their act together and start shooting the bogeys down.
Turkey didn't think twice before shooting down a Russian Su-24 in 2015 for violating Turkish airspace for about 17 seconds. This is how you "negotiate" with the Russians: first you break their nose when cross some red line, then appologize.
Move by whom? Drones straying from the intended route is usually caused by jamming from the other side.
Escalating tensions between Russia and NATO is in Ukraine's, not Russia's, interest.
To strip away your rhetoric, you are saying it is Ukraine's fault for Russian drones flying into Romania.
His name indicates a troll.
Because Russian's war with Ukraine is unsustainable, something has to change for Putin for him to remain in power, and one option is an escalation with NATO.
Some other scenarios also explained in this good video
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jDhYFSGkaAc&pp=iggCQAE%3D
Luckily being 73 and in what appears to be poor health can’t last forever. I can’t imagine spending my twilight years being one of the most hated people on the planet, but the head of the USA and Russia seem to have no issues with that.
“Father Time is undefeated.” - LeBron James
Hoping for Putin to get sick is unhelpful. Trump is still in power well past 80, after all. We would do better to plan for a future where Putin rules Russia for another 10-15 years.
What? In other words, you're saying: "Russia is losing war with Ukraine, so it wants to start a second front with bigger enemy".
Also, how's Ukraine war is sustainable for Ukraine? It's economy is non-existent (almost 100% dependent on western donations), it has less than 50% of population of 2022 (they don't publish any population stats directly, but if you combine available statistics, there are about 10-15 millions left most of them old retired people or young people that are too young to send them to the front lines), they are losing territory every day.
This is some weird "Ukraine is winning but front is moving in the wrong direction" logic.
A war doesn’t need to be sustainable for Ukraine, it’s existential. For the aggressor that backstop doesn’t exist. They could literally stop the war anytime they wanted so they need to continue to prove it’s sustainable to keep doing it.
Not all wars have a simple way to say who is winning, who is loosing. See the Vietnam war, different Afgan wars.
Ukraine is gaining some ground, but very slowly. It's basically a stalemate. Except that Ukraine is making the war extremely costly for Russia with the recent attacks on refineries and other targets deep into Russia.
As long as the EU keeps supporting them, I think Ukraine will be better able to maintain the current situation than Russia. But Ukraine is nearly as exhausted as Russia, and I think a European coalition sending real practical ground and air support would help a lot. I suspect sufficient support could force a breakthrough in southern Ukraine an liberate a very large chunk of land very quickly.
The reason that's not happening is either that NATO thinks this would give Putin the excuse he needs for large scale mobilisation, or simply because Europe is afraid to get its hands dirty. I don't think the former is nearly as big an issue as some believe; Putin has never needed any action from NATO or EU members to justify escalation, and has never responded to imagined red lines getting crossed.
The latter is more likely. I think Europe needs to remember the sacrifice that Canada and the US brought to liberate Europe in WW2, and recognise the moral obligation that creates to liberate others in a similar position. Like Ukraine today.
Ukr is attacking Retailers (Wildberries) in Russia because Russia helps Iran attack Amazon (US retailer) Data centers in the Gulf.
I think you’re misreading the comment and conflating Putin’s survival with the current war. I believe the OP is saying the administration can’t keep selling the war with Ukraine as a good idea indefinitely and will need to pivot to something more marketable. In our Internet-shaped world, everything is entertainment. This particular show has run its course and needs a pivot, add new actors, make a Very Special Episode or kill off one of the main characters.
Does not pass the smell test. The Youtuber has an axe to grind. Also, tracking in the URL.
Why make it more difficult if the current situation is unsustainable? Does not make sense.
> The Youtuber has an axe to grind
It is Anders Puck Nielsen who is a serious military researcher and commentator. He is a go-to by any television channel in Denmark and has been from the start of the war.
He very much passes the smell test :)
For opposite view,
The Ukraine War is a US war on Russia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhV87G9gXXU&t=18s
NATO Pushes Europe Toward Total Collapse - Countdown to ALL-OUT War Has Begun | Dr. Jan Oberg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_OLhQDeaKA
We seems scarily only one rogue actor or screw up from WW III in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.
Hawe you been in coma? There has been a ww2 sized war in eastern europe for 4 years
Don't we already have that? It's just a smoulder instead of a conflagration.
Do you feel threatened that Russia and Iran will succeed in conquering all of Europe and the Middle East? I see it more like a couple of misbehaving misfits. That's very different than say, WWII.
> I see it more like a couple of misbehaving misfits.
Those zany kids!
The main threat to Europe is if Trump ever makes good on his threats to take Canada and Greenland. If the US turns truly hostile, then Europe has a serious problem. Especially if Putin and Trump decide they want to split Europe between the two of them.
It's a very extreme case, but it would get extremely messy. Putin on his own is something Europe should easily be able to handle as long as they've got Ukraine on their side. Trump's erratic disruptive attacks will hopefully end at some point. I'm not worried about Iran at all, except internally.
Don’t worry. Someone will start putting bullets in the heads of people in charge before we let things get that far out of hand.
If our leaders act like Nazis, we need to kill some Nazis. I would rather risk being called a terrorist than be part of that kind of bullshit.
Fortunatly Trump won’t be a major problem for long. I’m more worried about the techbro community who want to usher in a neo-feudal empire based around resource control.
Where the misbehaving misfits are the aggressors, i.e Russia, the USA, and Israel?
Well, not even the Nazis managed to permanently conquer Europe, but the destruction they still wrought on the continent was enormous.
Even a victorious war is destructive. I'd like to do without, but I am just a random hobbit in this regard.
That is the point of these "one offs".
My read on the situation is that Putin knows that he's stuck, and baiting nato into some (likely tepid) response gives him an excuse to expand the next call up / draft.
With the heatwaves and drought in Europe it's probably not the best time to have flaming wreckage falling from the sky.
Time to expell some more Russian embassy staff.
AIUI Russia has been regularly intruding into Finnish airspace and has often penetrated the land border with Georgia.
It’s one of those “let’s see how much we can get away with” probes to try to establish a new status quo. I wonder how Russia would respond to NATO drones doing the same.
Drones shot down in Romania, Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Finland, etc.
These are probes. Judging responses and response times.
Rumor is Polish GROM have been inside Russia for months.
Edit: See sources in my comment below. I bring receipts.
> These are probes. Judging responses and response times.
Some, yes. Many are merely defective units. These weapons are being manufactured in enormous quantity and deployed rapidly with minimal quality control: based on the reported numbers over Ukraine, the net manufacturing rate is about 10 per hour. Inevitably, some are defective and fail to follow waypoints. Romania is on a line through numerous targets in Ukraine from the Kursk region where many Russian drone flights begin, so Romania ends up being the unintended destination.
The good news is that the defects likely represent resource problems for the manufacturers. The same phenomena has been noted with increasing failed missile launches from Russia.
Can you elaborate on the last sentence? It sounds crazy.
I watched a related Chris Cappy video the other day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RBY1cY-GF8
> Poland's elite GROM commandos have become legendary (...) in this episode, we explore (...) the covert war between Poland and Russia, and why Polish-speaking commandos are appearing inside Russian territory.
There are rumours that Polish GROM has been taking “vacations” in Ukraine. As in “we cannot officially approve your presence there but we won’t stop you either”, from the government.
yes, it is a big [citation needed] for me
See gattr's comment above
Basically GROM getting "leave" and then ending up with their whole team inside Ukraine as "contractors", just with deniability.
https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/polish-mercenaries...
Regarding efforts to provide deniability for their operations, a Polish officer informed him: “we worked out a formula for our presence in Ukraine … we were simply sent on paid leave. Politicians pretended not to see this.” The Polish Volunteer Corps has appeared to use the same model to provide cover for the mass deployment of Polish Armed Forces personnel, who are technically former personnel when entering the theatre, with their presence having for years been widely reported on multiple frontlines. In February 2026, the lower house of the Polish parliament adopted legislation to provide legal cover to Polish citizens who fought in the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian War.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/07/03/russia-pla...
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2026/07/12/8043770/
https://abcnews.com/International/wireStory/baltics-poland-w...
Occam's razor. Decoy drones with a bit more fuel or favorable wind.
The big part that I didn’t see was whether this was a Russian drone or Ukrainian drone
Shahed drones are used only by russia and iran
They're Shahed drones, used by Russia.
In September the Russians accused the Ukrainians of having repairing downed Geran drone airframes at the Lviv LORTA plant, transferring them to Yavoriv, and launching them unarmed into Poland. They presented various evidence like serial numbers, photographs of silver-tape repairs, claims that a Ukrainian SIM-card was used, lack of impact destruction, etc.
What's true though? I don't believe that I have a way to find out.
A safe option is to avoid trusting an aggressor, which has no business being in Ukraine and that can pack up their bags and leave at any time.
Russian credibility is at ~zero IMO. They've put forth so many insane theories related to this war that they started.
And just on first principles, how stupid would the Ukrainian have to be to do such a thing to their biggest ally? It almost beggars belief.
портянка
foot-wrap? What are you saying here? Is this a colloquialism that I'm not familiar with?
> I didn’t see was whether this was a Russian drone or Ukrainian drone
From the france24 article:
> A government investigation reportedly identified the first of the three drones as a Shahed model used by Russia in its war with Ukraine.
What does this have to do with startups?
Not much, but it's interesting and I think a large population of users here are curious about drone tech
>What does this have to do with startups?
You know, I used to have this style view when reading and commenting Slashdot, pre-9/11 about anything other than "the tech".
Afterward, in high school, I began to feel that understanding the foundations of geopolitics can help you maintain an advantage in the business world.