Romania scrambled F-16 fighter jets to destroy a suspected Russian marine drone spotted a few hundred metres from a Black Sea gas project.
The country’s defence minister said that the drone was destroyed as it travelled near Neptun Deep, a critical facility that is expected to make Romania the European Union's largest gas producer when it comes onstream in 2027.
Romania shares a 614-km land border with Ukraine and has seen Russian drones breaching its airspace over the last four years and mines floating in the Black Sea across key trade and energy routes.
"In order to protect the lives of the several hundred people working on the platform and to secure critical infrastructure, the decision was made to destroy (the marine drone)," Miruta said in a Facebook post on Thursday.
In a later post, he confirmed the drone — which was hit by the fighter jet and completely destroyed by a ship that arrived at the location — contained explosives.
Comment - Putin’s empty threats to the UK are the last gasp of a dying Russia
Time and again, we see that Moscow’s red lines are drawn in disappearing ink – if anything, we should take a warning of ‘serious consequences’ only as a sign to push things further and faster, says Bill Browder. Read below:
‘Putin has repeatedly threatened the UK and Nato over Ukraine – but he is too weak to follow through’
Putin’s posturing is a poor attempt to scare off broader Western support for Kyiv, say experts. Suha Kidwai reports. Read below.
Ukraine's neighbors are on alert
Russia's relentless onslaught has spooked other European countries, especially those bordering Ukraine, which fear spreading attacks from Moscow.
Amid the attack on Kyiv, the Polish Armed Forces Operational Command activated its military aviation operations, ground-based air defence systems and radar reconnaissance. Polish and other NATO military aircraft were deployed to monitor its airspace, Polish news agency PAP reported.
Romania's Defence Ministry said an unidentified drone crashed and burned in an uninhabited area near the Ukrainian border.
Two Spanish F-18 jets, deployed on a policing mission in Romania, were scrambled overnight to monitor a group of "air targets" near the border, the ministry said.
In addition, two Romanian F-16 fighter jets were deployed to destroy a naval drone seen near a major Black Sea gas project, Romania's acting defence minister Radu Miruta said.
Moldova's Defence Ministry also said its airspace was breached by at least one drone.
Russia "is increasingly testing the resolve of NATO and its partners, violating the sovereignty of neighboring states and deliberately expanding the risks posed by its war far beyond Ukraine," Ukrainian foreign minister Andrii Sybiha said on social media.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen saw a broad threat to the European Union. "An escalating campaign of threats is underway, unsettling our citizens and seeking to divide our Union," she said on X.
Ukraine says it struck more Russian oil facilities
Ukraine's general staff said on Thursday its forces struck an oil refinery in Nizhnekamsk, in Russia's Tatarstan region, starting a fire, and the Tamanneftegaz oil terminal in Volna, in Russia's Krasnodar region, where there was also a blaze.
Ukraine has hit both facilities in recent months as part of its campaign to disrupt Russia's vital oil industry.
Tatarstan leader Rustam Minnikhanov confirmed there had been a "massive attack" in the region, state news agency Tass reported, citing his press service.
Many of the drones targeted Nizhnekamsk's Zakamsk economic area, disrupting production at industrial sites and damaging residential buildings, Tass quoted him as saying.
The Russian Defence Ministry said air defences shot down 726 drones overnight over a number of Russian regions, annexed Crimea and the Black and Azov seas, in one of Ukraine's biggest aerial attacks of the war.
Editorial: Vladimir Putin has pushed his people to breaking point
Read in full below
Norway boosts defence footprint with expansion of Arctic brigade
Norway on Thursday expanded a recently created military brigade headquartered in the Arctic, the latest move by a NATO nation to boost its defence footprint in the wake of the Ukraine war.
The NATO member established the Finnmark Brigade last year, forming the country's second brigade and the first one set up since the end of the Cold War.
Both brigades have their headquarters in the Arctic. Norway, like the other Nordic countries, has steeply increased its military budget in response to the Ukraine war and Donald Trump's push to get European allies to contribute more to defence.
The Nordic country is now in the top ranks of NATO defence spending when measured as a proportion of a country's GDP, spending an estimated 3.17 per cent this year on defence, up from 1.5 per cent in 2014, according to NATO figures.
One of the Finnmark Brigade's main duties until now was to surveil and patrol the 198-km (123-mile) border Norway shares with Russia.
It is being expanded to include an artillery battalion, air defence battery and communications company that will enable it to carry out certain actions, such as firing at targets on land some 40 km away or coordinating firing with planes and ships from both Norwegian and NATO forces.
"This is a completely different level of firepower than what has been used before," the head of the brigade, Brigadier John Olav Fuglem, told Reuters in a phone interview from Porsangmoen, where the brigade is headquartered.
Porsangmoen lies some 180 km from Norway's border with Russia in a straight line.
The Russian region on the other side is a major military hosting area, including for Russia's Northern Fleet.
"We will answer every threat and attack on Norway and NATO. We will defend every centimetre," defence minister Tore Sandvik said in the same phone interview with Reuters.
The Russian embassy in Oslo did not reply to a request for comment, Reuters said.
Moscow has previously dismissed allegations that it poses a threat to NATO.
Comment: Putin’s empty threats to the UK are the last gasp of a dying Russia
Time and again, we see that Moscow’s red lines are drawn in disappearing ink – if anything, we should take a warning of ‘serious consequences’ only as a sign to push things further and faster, says Bill Browder. Read below.
Video: At least five dead as Putin launches ‘massive attack’ on Kyiv
Russian strikes kill 16 in Ukraine, Zelenskiy says lack of interceptors costs lives
A major Russian airstrike killed 16 people and injured more than 40 in Kyiv and the surrounding region on Thursday as president Volodymyr Zelensky said a failure by Ukraine's allies to replenish its stock of air defence missiles was costing lives.
Ukraine's air force said Russia launched dozens of cruise missiles, as well as ballistic and hypersonic ones, and 168 drones, in the massive overnight attack.
The air force said that nearly 90 per cent of the drones and most of the cruise missiles were downed. It did not specify how many ballistic missiles were launched and whether any were intercepted.
Zelensky called Thursday's strike one of the most "cynical, calculated, and large-scale" of the four-and-a-half-year-long war.
The upper floors of a nine-storey residential block were destroyed in Kyiv's Solomianskyi district, mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
He called for Friday to be observed as a day of mourning. Overall, 30 residential buildings, a school, a children's hospital, and a kindergarten were damaged in the capital and the surrounding areas, Zelenskiy said.
Private energy company DTEK said it had restored power to some 90,000 households that lost the supply after the attack.
The Russian defence ministry said Moscow attacked Kyiv and the surrounding region with airstrikes and drones, hitting facilities producing drone components, a military depot and a logistics hub, as well as other targets.
As Russia has escalated its ballistic strikes in recent months, Zelenskiy has pleaded with allies to replenish Ukraine's stock of Patriot interceptors - the only weapon in its arsenal capable of downing a ballistic missile.