Russian Made Military Drone Flies over Romania, Hungary, Croatia, No Action Taken

A severe incident occurred on Thursday night, March 10: one Russian made military drone, most likely in the use of the Ukrainian Army, flies over three European Union and NATO countries and falls in Croatia. This happens when the NATO forces are supposed to be on high alert, and it tells everything about the actual risk associated with the military conflict in Ukraine.

The drone is Russian made: Tupolev Tu-141 Strizh. According to specialists, this is a Soviet reconnaissance drone used between the 1970s-1980s by the Red Army, only to be later used, since 2014, by the Ukrainian Army. So, by all sources, at the moment this drone is not in the use of the Russian army.

Romanian Army issued a press release on the military drone flying over Romania

“Regarding the information on the evolution in the Romanian airspace, during the night of Thursday, March 10, of an unmanned aircraft, we make the following clarifications:

Romania’s airspace surveillance system spotted on Thursday, March 10, a small aerial object, most likely an unmanned aerial vehicle (drone), which evolved in the national airspace for a concise period, under three minutes.

The aircraft entered the Romanian airspace, coming from Ukraine, around 23.23 and left the national airspace around 23.26, heading to Hungary.

The evolution of this air object for a very short time in the national airspace, the high speed, the low flight altitude, associated with the rugged terrain and the weather conditions at that time, did not allow the use of other procedural measures to identify this air object in flight.”

One potential explanation for this incident

The speculation goes towards a potential confusion between the names of the lake Jarun in Zagreb and the city of Yarun in Ukraine. According to sources, the drone was programmed to fly to Jarun, which left it without fuel, and it crashed.

The drone flew 3 minutes over Romania, 30 minutes over Hungary and 7 minutes over Croatia. The high speed it flies at, around 700 km/h, made it almost impossible to be adequately detected and intercepted.

Still, there are 40 minutes when a military drone flew over NATO space, and no allied aircraft intervened or took any action of some kind. It is a severe incident that needs an immediate answer.

An investigation is conducted in Croatia.

Photo source: Wikipedia – By Bernhard Gröhl – Own work, CC BY 2.5,