Tough Questions for International Law
[2]
by Mihai Coca-Constantinescu, JURIST
Within the span of one week, Romania was struck twice by drones originating from the conflict in Ukraine: first by an aerial drone in the city of Galați on May 29, and then by a maritime drone that exploded in the Port of Constanța on June 5. The two incidents, unprecedented in their proximity and severity, have reignited urgent debates about the legal and security implications of modern drone warfare spilling across international borders.
The first aerial drone struck [3] the roof of a residential apartment building in Galați, a Danube port city bordering Ukraine. Two people, a 14-year-old boy and a 53-year-old woman, were hospitalized, while two others were treated at the scene for panic attacks. The drone was confirmed to be of Russian origin, carrying explosives, and formed part of a larger overnight attack on Ukraine that involved 232 drones and one ballistic missile. A week later, a Ukrainian naval drone self-detonated [4] near an oil terminal in Constanța. Ukraine confirmed the device was its own, attributing the loss of control to Russian electronic jamming that knocked the drone off its course.
These are incidents that did not occur in isolation. Romania, which shares a 650 kilometer border with Ukraine, has recorded more than two dozen confirmed drone incursions into its airspace since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Fragments of Russian drones have been recovered on Romanian soil on multiple occasions. In November 2025, a drone made its deepest recorded penetration into Romanian airspace, prompting the scrambling of both Romanian F-16s and German Eurofighter Typhoons stationed at the Mihail Kogălniceanu airbase.
What distinguishes the May and June 2026 incidents is their scale of consequence. The Galați strike marked the first time a Russian drone caused physical injury to Romanian civilians in a densely populated area. It is, by any reasonable measure, a qualitative escalation—one that transforms a long-simmering border security concern into an acute sovereignty crisis with international law implications.
The Romanian government's response to the incident was swift and resolute. Following a meeting of the Supreme Council of National Defense [5], President Nicușor Dan declared [6] the Russian consul in Constanța persona non grata [7] and announced the closure of the Russian consulate in the city. Minister of Foreign Affairs Oana Toiu confirmed both the Russian origin of the Galați drone, and that it was carrying explosives, stating plainly that Romania considers the incident "the full responsibility of the Russian Federation." Foreign Affairs officials also summoned for discussions Moscow’s ambassador.
Romania's Defense Ministry acknowledged that the drone had been detected by radar systems and tracked into the southern area of Galați, but said there was “no opportunity” to intercept it given the limited time available. This candid admission reflects a genuine operational challenge: the speed and low-altitude flight paths of modern drones make interception extremely difficult, even for well-equipped NATO members. In the aftermath of the incidents, authorities issued Ro-Alert (Romania's national emergency alert system) notifications to affected populations, deployed helicopters to search for additional drones, and evacuated over 1.300 people from Black Sea beaches near Constanța as a precautionary measure.
Russia, for its part, denied responsibility for the Galați strike. President Vladimir Putin suggested [8] that the drone may have been of Ukrainian origin, noting previous incidents in Baltic states that were later attributed to Ukrainian drones. The Russian government also warned of a forthcoming response to Romania’s decision to close the Constanța consulate.
The legal dimensions of these incidents are considerable. Under international law, the principle of state sovereignty enshrined in Article 2(1) of the United Nations Charter [9] guarantees each state exclusive jurisdiction over its territory and airspace. The unauthorized entry of an armed drone into Romanian airspace, whether deliberate or the result of navigational error, constitutes a violation of that sovereignty. Romania’s Foreign Affairs Ministry formally characterized the Galați incident as a serious violation of international law.
The distinction between a deliberate attack and an incidental overflight matters significantly in legal terms. The law of state responsibility, as codified in the International Law Commission’s Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts [10], provides that a state bears responsibility for an internationally wrongful act attributable to it, regardless of intent. Russia's pattern of launching mass drone attacks on Ukrainian territory—attacks that, by their nature and frequency have predictably resulted in drones crossing into Romanian airspace—may be sufficient to establish the imputability of harm, even without evidence of deliberate targeting.
As for the Constanța maritime drone, Ukraine confirmed ownership of the vessel and attributed its errant trajectory to Russian electronic jamming. This raises a distinct but equally complex legal question: when one belligerent's interference with another’s weapons system causes that system to strike a neutral third state, who bears responsibility? The law of armed conflict does not yet offer a settled answer to this scenario, and the Constanța incident may prove to be significant in the evolving jurisprudence surrounding drone warfare and electronic countermeasures.
For NATO, the incidents in Romania present a structural challenge that the Alliance has been grappling with, largely without resolution, since 2022. Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty [11] commits all North American Treaty Organization (NATO) members to treat an armed attack against one as an attack against all. Whether recurring drone incursions into a member state’s territory that resulted in civilian casualties meets the threshold of an “armed attack” as defined in Article 5 is a question of enormous political and legal weight.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte condemned [12] the Galați incident, stating that “Russia’s reckless behavior is a danger to us all” and that “the implications of their illegal war of aggression don’t stop at the border.” The United States Ambassador to NATO, Matthew Whitaker, called the strike a "reckless incursion" and reaffirmed the Alliance's commitment to defend every inch of NATO territory. NATO's Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) spokesperson confirmed the Russian origin of the drone. Yet the Alliance stopped short of treating the incident as a trigger for consultations under Article 4, let alone collective defense measures under Article 5.
This restraint is deliberate and arguably prudent. Analysts have long warned that ambiguity in NATO’s response to incremental violations may itself function as an invitation to further provocation. At the same time, overreaction to what may be—or what can plausibly be—framed as navigational accidents risks a dangerous escalation with a nuclear-armed state. The Alliance’s challenge is to calibrate a response that is firm enough to deter future incursions while avoiding a spiral toward direct confrontation.
Romania’s own legal framework has evolved in response to this dilemma. Law No. 73 of 2025 [13] introduced a domestic legal basis for the interception and shooting down of unauthorized aerial vehicles under specific conditions. This measure sought to address the gap between Romania’s standing rules of engagement and the operational realities of low-altitude drone intrusions.
The events of late May and early June 2026 underscore a structural vulnerability that no bilateral diplomatic protest can adequately address. Russia’s ongoing drone warfare against Ukraine will continue to affect neighboring NATO countries both physically and legally. The incidents in Galați and Constanța are not anomalies—they are predictable consequences of a war being fought with technologies that do not respect borders.
What is needed, at both the national and alliance level, is a clearer legal and operational framework for responding to drone incursions; one that establishes transparent thresholds for what constitutes a casus belli [14]—an act or event that provokes or justifies war—under international law; one that defines the conditions under which interdiction is authorized, and strengthens collective anti-drone capabilities along NATO’s eastern flank. Romania has requested support from its allies for anti-drone defense measures, and this request now merits a considered response.
More broadly, the international community faces a normative gap that the Constanța incident has brought into sharp view. The use of electronic warfare to redirect armed drones into neutral territory, whether by design or as a foreseeable consequence of jamming, is a scenario for which the existing law of armed conflict provides insufficient guidance. Legal scholars, international organizations, and state governments would do well to begin the work of filling that gap before the next incident transforms a legal ambiguity into a geopolitical crisis.
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Mihai Coca-Constantinescu, who holds an International and European Law LLB from the University of Groningen and an International Trade & Investment Law LLM from the University of Amsterdam, is a PhD candidate in Transboundary Legal Studies at the University of Groningen, based in the Netherlands
This piece first appeared June 23 in JURIST [15].
Image: Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection [16]
From our Daily Report:
Romania scrambles F-16 jets after drone incursion
CounterVortex [17], Sept. 16, 2025
See also:
GAS INTRIGUES, ECOLOGY AND THE UKRAINE WAR
by Eugene Simonov and Jennifer Castner
Ukraine War Environmental Consequences Work Group
CounterVortex [18], October 2023
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Reprinted by CounterVortex, June 25, 2026
Used with permission.
