Two NATO members said on Sunday that Russian drones had violated their airspace, as one was reported to have flown into Romania night attack in neighboring Ukraine while another crashed in eastern Latvia the day before.
Drones entered Romanian territory early Sunday as Moscow attacked “civilian targets and port infrastructure” on the Danube River in Ukraine, Romania’s Ministry of National Defense reported. He added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 fighter jets to monitor its airspace and text alerts to residents in the two eastern regions.
It also said an investigation was underway into a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area on the Romania-Ukraine border. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.
Later on Sunday, Latvian Defense Minister Andris Sprūds said a Russian drone had crashed a day earlier near the town of Rezekne, and had likely strayed into Latvia from neighboring Belarus.
Rezekne, home to more than 25,000 people, is located about 55 kilometers (34 miles) west of Russia and about 75 kilometers (47 miles) from Belarus, a close ally and dependency of the Kremlin.
While the attack on Latvian airspace appears to be a rare occurrence, Romania has confirmed drone fragments in the area on several occasions since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, until July this year.
Mircea Geoană, NATO deputy secretary general and former top diplomat in Romania, said on Sunday that the military alliance condemned Russia’s violation of Romanian airspace. “While we have no information indicating a deliberate attack by Russia against the Allies, this action is irresponsible and potentially dangerous,” he wrote on the X social media platform.
Latvia’s military on Sunday also said there was no indication that Moscow or Minsk deliberately sent drones into the country. In a public statement, the military said it had determined the location of the crash, and the investigation was ongoing.
Sprūds, Latvia’s defense minister, sought to downplay the importance of drone strikes.
“I can confirm that there were no victims here and no property was violated in any way,” Defense Minister Andris Sprūds told Latvian Radio on Sunday, adding that any risk at the event was immediately ruled out: “Of course, it happened. seriously, because this is a reminder of the neighboring countries we live next to.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha called the attack “a reminder (that) the Russian Federation’s aggressive actions extend beyond Ukraine’s borders.”
“The collective response of the Allies must be maximum support for Ukraine now, to stop (Russian aggression), protect lives and maintain peace in Europe,” Sybiha said in a post on X.
Civilians have been reported killed in Ukraine
In Ukraine, two civilians were killed and four others were wounded in a Russian airstrike overnight in the northern city of Sumy, the regional military administration reported. Two children were among the injured, the administration said. Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed later on Sunday that its forces attacked foreign pro-Kyiv fighters in a village on the northern edge of Sumy. It was not immediately clear whether this was a reference to the same attack.
Also on Sunday, Ukraine’s General Staff said Russian forces continued to attack Sumy and surrounding areas with airstrikes, and had launched at least 16 “gliding bombs” in the province in the evening. Russian forces attacked the city again on Sunday, injuring teenagers and civilians, the regional prosecutor’s office reported.
Three more women were killed on Sunday after Russian forces attacked a village in the eastern Donetsk region, Governor Vadym Filashkin reported on the Telegram messaging app. Separately, a Russian strike killed a woman on the outskirts of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city in the northeast, local authorities said.
Meanwhile, the death toll rose to 58 from a massive Russian missile attack on Tuesday that blew up a military academy and a nearby hospital in the eastern city of Poltava, regional Governor Filip Pronin reported. More than 320 others were injured.
Evgeniy Maloletka / AP
Since launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, the Russian military has repeatedly used missiles to destroy civilian targets, sometimes killing scores of people in a single strike.
Russian forces continued to push the mill to the city of Pokrovsk, and also ramped up the attack near the city of Kurakhove further south, the General Staff of Ukraine reported.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Sunday its forces had captured Novohrodivka, a small town about 19 kilometers (11 miles) southeast of Pokrovsk. An update published Saturday evening by DeepState, a Ukrainian battlefield analysis site, said Russian forces had “advanced” in Novohrodivka and captured Nevelske, a village in the southeast of Pokrovsk district.
Pokrovsk, which had a pre-war population of around 60,000, is one of Ukraine’s main defensive strongholds and a key logistics center in the Donetsk region. Such capture would compromise Ukraine’s defense and supply routes, and would bring Russia closer to its goal of seizing the entire Donetsk region.
Berlin raised the prospect of peace talks with Russia
Also on Sunday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy agreed that Moscow should be included in a future peace conference aimed at ending the invasion of Ukraine.
“Of course there will be a further peace conference, and the president (Zelenskyy) and I agree that it should be one with Russia now,” Scholz told German public television ZDF.
A peace conference ahead of June 15-16 in Switzerland ended with 78 countries expressing support for Ukraine’s “territorial integrity” but no clear path forward. Russia did not participate.
Ukraine’s Zelenskyy did not immediately comment on Scholz’s remarks, but said in a video speech Sunday that he had “important negotiations” with the German leader and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. He gave no details.
