The Defence Ministry of Romania, a NATO member, denies that a Russian missile entered the country's airspace during the morning attack.
The Defence Ministry's website stated that Romania's air defence systems identified the Russian missile, but it did not enter the country's airspace, flying only over Moldova.
“The Romanian Air Forces’ air surveillance system detected on Friday, February 10th, an aerial target launched by a Russian Federation’s ship, navigating in the Black Sea, nearby the Crimea Peninsula. The target is most likely a cruise missile, which flew over the air space of Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova and reentered the Ukrainian air space without ever infringing Romania’s air space,” the message states.
The Defence Ministry added that the closest point of the aerial target’s trajectory from the Romanian air space was recorded by the radar systems to be almost 35 kilometres North-East from the border.
The agency refers to one missile, while the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ reports mentioned two.
Today, the Air Force and Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Valeriy Zaluzhnyy reported that two Russian missiles crossed Ukraine's border with Moldova, then Romania, and then returned to Ukrainian airspace. Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat told UP that the Ukrainian military had the opportunity to shoot down the missiles but did not do so because of the risks and threats to the population of foreign countries.
He added that this is not the first time Russia staged provocations violating the airspace of third countries.