Does a stray drone constitute an attack? |
NATO’s mission is to defend every inch of its members’ territory, the alliance’s mantra goes. Then, on 29 May, a Russian drone hit a Romanian block of flats, injuring two people. Now Nato faces a dilemma: if it doesn’t react, it signals that adversaries can hit Nato with impunity as long the harm is, in the scheme of things, insignificant. If it does hit back, it risks full-scale war. This dilemma is precisely why Russia is so cavalier about minor incursions.
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In the early hours of 29 May, a Russian drone whizzed through Ukrainian airspace and entered Romanian territory, where it hit a block of flats in the port city of Galati. A mother and child were injured in their home. It remains unclear whether Romania was the intended target or whether the drone strayed across the border after encountering Ukrainian drone defences.
Either way, two people are injured, and President Nicusor Dan didn’t mince his words when assigning responsibility: ‘I declare, with the utmost firmness, that full responsibility for this incident lies with the Russian Federation,’ he wrote on X. He added: ‘There........