Russia said on Sunday that the number of Ukrainian drones it had downed as they approached Moscow had risen to 76, as Moldova and Luxembourg announced that they had detected drone-related incidents in their airspace. The developments came amid growing European concerns that the security repercussions of the Russian-Ukrainian war could spread to countries and civilian facilities beyond the immediate battlefields.
Sobyanin added that most of the drones had been destroyed at the region’s borders, noting that emergency teams continued to work at sites where aircraft debris had fallen. The interception operations announced by Russian authorities were not limited to the capital’s outskirts, as Russia’s Defence Ministry said air-defence systems had neutralised 629 Ukrainian drones over various regions, including Moscow, over the past two days.
Deaths reported in attack on Kyiv region
On the Ukrainian side, officials said at least three people had been killed in a Russian attack on the Kyiv region. Timur Tkachenko, the region’s military governor, said a girl, a boy and a woman had been killed in an attack targeting the Fastiv area on Saturday evening.
In Moldova, authorities said on Saturday that they suspected a drone had caused what they described as an “unacceptable” breach of the country’s airspace, following an explosion near the capital, Chisinau. Moldova’s Foreign Ministry said the incident had caused no casualties or damage, and described it as part of what it called the “dangerous repercussions” of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
The ministry said in a statement that “any unauthorised entry into Moldovan airspace is unacceptable and represents a serious violation of our state’s sovereignty”. The explosion occurred on Friday in Colonita, near Chisinau, while police said they had found debris near the site that they believed belonged to a drone, without identifying where it had been launched from.
Moldova’s border police said several unidentified aerial devices had flown through the country’s airspace in the south-east on Saturday, adding that one of them may have crashed inside Ukrainian territory.
Luxembourg investigates drones near airport
The incident came a week after Moldova closed its airspace following the detection of a Russian drone arriving from Ukraine, delaying the departure from Chisinau of a plane carrying Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. In Luxembourg, Prime Minister Luc Frieden announced an investigation after drones were spotted near the country’s main airport, an incident that led to flights being temporarily suspended overnight.
Frieden said his country was co-operating with its NATO allies over the incident, amid growing concerns among European countries about multi-faceted attacks suspected of originating in Russia. The prime minister said drones “perhaps larger” than usual had been spotted in Luxembourg’s airspace in recent days, but stressed that it was still too early to determine their source.
Flights at Luxembourg Airport were briefly suspended overnight and into Saturday morning after unauthorised drones were spotted near the airport and then over its runway, before air traffic returned to normal. Since the Russian-Ukrainian war began in 2022, incidents involving drones have repeatedly been reported in countries allied with Kyiv, particularly those on NATO’s eastern flank.
European warnings over attacks on sensitive sites
Drones were also reported flying over sensitive sites in Belgium and Denmark, heightening concerns about the security of European civilian and military facilities and infrastructure. The German government had officially accused Russia of responsibility for an attempted attack involving an explosives-laden drone targeting Leipzig/Halle Airport last month.
Moscow rejected the German accusation and accused Berlin of fabricating evidence, as several European leaders, including the leaders of France and Poland, warned of the risks of multi-faceted Russian attacks.
Amid warnings linked to the possibility of the confrontation widening, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said some Western politicians were seeking to “provoke a conflict between NATO and Russia after a failed strategy aimed at defeating Moscow in its war with Ukraine”, in his words. Fico said Europe was closer than ever to a full-scale war because of the conflict in Ukraine.
Fico maintains friendly relations with Russia and opposes providing military aid to Ukraine. Earlier in the week, he warned that any drone incursion could trigger NATO’s collective defence clause, saying he wanted to prevent Slovakia, a NATO member that shares a border with Ukraine, from becoming a party to an armed conflict.
