Romania is looking to collaborate with Ukraine on developing drones through a new European Union defence funding initiative. However, it will take at least seven years before the country has a multi-layered air defence system, according to a government source.
Sharing a 650 km (400 miles) land border with Ukraine, Romania has experienced more than 20 incidents over the past two years, where drones have breached its airspace or fragments have fallen onto its territory. This has occurred since Russia began attacking Ukraine's ports along the Danube, just across from Romania.
Tensions have been rising along Europe's eastern border, after Estonia accused Moscow of sending three fighter jets into its airspace and Denmark closing airports due to suspected drones. This came a week after NATO jets intercepted Russian drones in Polish airspace. Romania also narrowly avoided shooting down a drone.
"We need more air defences, but nobody has them," a Romanian defence source told Reuters.
"For the time being, defence will be asymmetrical, with enormous anti-aircraft costs that could only be borne at the NATO level."
The source explained that Romania has been in discussions with Ukraine, whose drone technology has been “battle-tested on a large scale,” to manufacture drones in a project funded by the EU's 'SAFE' rearmament initiative.
Romania has €16.6 billion ($19.4 billion) allocated under the Security Action For Europe (SAFE) initiative, which Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan stated would support military acquisitions amounting to roughly 1% of national output annually for five years.
Romania's air defences currently consist of F-16 fighter jets, Patriot systems, Lockheed Martin's HIMARS rocket launchers, short-range South Korean Chiron surface-to-air missiles, and German Gepard anti-aircraft guns.
The latter two options are Romania’s most cost-effective for drone defence at present, the source said.
Gepards are deployed near populated areas along the Ukrainian border, but covering the entire border and maintaining these systems would be financially unfeasible.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has called for greater economic cooperation among Muslim countries, saying their combined economic weight remai...
A restaurant payment with a Visa card in Damascus has become a symbol of Syria’s reconnection with the global financial system....
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian has said that Tehran is ready to establish joint security arrangements...
Oil prices fell after the U.S. expanded economic sanctions on Iran, as Tehran vowed to retaliate and warned it had tools to respond, raising concerns over potential disruption to regional oil supplies.
Rescuers in Nepal used helicopters on Thursday to scour for hundreds still missing after a wall of mud and rock collapsed into a river on the Himalayan border with China's Tibet, sending catastrophic floods through towns and valleys, killing 162 people.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told allied foreign ministers Washington will focus on sanctions and other pressure on Iran “for the time being”, Axios reports. Meanwhile, Iran and Oman have resumed talks on a temporary shipping route through the Strait of Hormuz.
Kyiv has recently received a small number of U.S.-made Patriot interceptors capable of downing Russian ballistic missiles, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said. It comes as Britain and France pledged stronger military support for Ukraine.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has called for greater economic cooperation among Muslim countries, saying their combined economic weight remains disproportionately small compared with their population, strategic location and resources.
Ratko Mladić, the former Bosnian Serb military commander convicted of genocide for his role in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, has died, according to a United Nations official.
A glacial collapse that triggered catastrophic flooding along the Nepal-Tibet border on Wednesday has killed at least 270 people, with more than 1,000 still missing. Here are some of the most devastating glacier-related disasters recorded around the world:
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says 3.7 million children across Afghanistan are suffering from acute wasting, a dangerous form of malnutrition, including around one million with severe acute malnutrition, as hospitals and aid services face rising demand and funding shortages.
Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has dismissed media reports that CIA Director John Ratcliffe visited Moscow earlier this week to warn Russia against attacking NATO, dismissing them as "scare stories," which had nothing to do with reality.
Icelanders will vote on Saturday, 29 August, on whether to resume negotiations with the European Union, in a referendum that could reopen the country’s long-debated membership question.
You can download the AnewZ application from Play Store and the App Store.
What is your opinion on this topic?
Leave the first comment