At least three people were killed in a drone attack on Ismail, on the border with Romania. The drone briefly flew over the NATO country’s airspace.

Izmail/Odessa. At least three people were killed in a drone attack on the Ukrainian port city of Ismail on the Danube and border with Romania on Friday night, according to officials. Ole Kiper, the military governor of the southern Ukrainian Odesa region, said at least 14 people were wounded.

Several houses, other buildings and cars were damaged in the night attack. There were major fires. The Ismail River port, about 95 kilometers from the Black Sea, is important for Ukrainian grain exports and, conversely, for imports of all kinds of goods. Ismail has already been bombed several times in this war, most recently in July this year.

On the other side of this arm of the Danube, which is more than 500 meters wide in places, is NATO and EU country Romania. A Russian drone may have entered its airspace during the night “for a short period of less than three minutes,” the Romanian Defense Ministry announced on Friday. The Romanian Air Force sent two F-16 fighter jets to the region and two Spanish F-18s from a NATO base in the country.

Several NATO countries have permanently relocated their warplanes to Romania. Since the start of the war in Ukraine in 2022, Russian drones have landed several times inside Romanian territory without causing any significant damage.