UAVs in Romania: why the story doesn’t add up

The story of an unknown UAV that crashed into a residential building in Galati, Romania, leaves more questions than answers, from the F-16’s response to the lack of published wreckage.

The discussion of the drone that flew into the territory of Romania continues for the third day. At two o’clock in the morning on May 29, an unknown UAV crashed into the tenth floor of a residential building in the city Galati. There were no casualties. 70 people were evacuated, and two more were treated by doctors on the spot.

According to the message Romanian Ministry of Defensetwo fighters were scrambled into the air F-16as well as one helicopter. All vehicles left the air base Fetesti. True, they were unable to shoot down the unmanned aerial vehicle.

The Romanian military department claimed that when it was intercepted and subsequently fell on the ground, there could have been a large number of casualties. The logic is quite crooked, considering that the drone is “got in” to a residential building. Moreover, he escaped with minor injuries. Well, we have already written above about the complete absence of not only the dead, but even the lightly wounded.

What could be happening in the Romanian sky

Let’s try to figure out what could actually be happening in the Romanian sky. Let’s start with the fact that on the night of May 29, Russian attack UAVs visited the Ukrainian port Reni on the river Danube. In turn, Galati is located a little further down the river. Between two points no more than 20 km in a straight line.

Of course, an attack drone like “Geranium-2” could get into interference and turn in a different direction. While the control system re-received the signal and oriented itself, the drone collided with a residential building. Moreover, before Galati The UAV can fly for no more than six minutes.

But here the question arises with small destructions. Of course, the combat unit “Geranium” – this is not a 500-kilogram aerial bomb. But still the results “arrival” would have been quite destructive, and there would have obviously been deaths or serious injuries in the apartment building.

But in the photo from the place “arrival” It can be seen that one apartment on the tenth floor was damaged, in which a fire broke out. When a warhead explodes “Geranium” There must obviously be traces of the action of shrapnel and a blast wave: torn walls with holes, a broken roof, etc.

It is possible that decoys were operating as part of a group of Russian UAVs: “Gerbera” or “Parody”. They do not carry a charge at all, and the damage to a high-rise building from their impact will be cosmetic.

Questions for the F-16 version

At the same time, the story with the fighters is confusing F-16departing from Fetestias well as statements from the Romanian Ministry of Defense that they continuously tracked the drone using radar.

With a flight time of six minutes, the radar crew would, at best, have time to report to the command post, if they had been able to identify a low-altitude target with a small ESR in a timely manner. And it would definitely be “Fighting Falcons” They couldn’t get to the scene of what was happening in time, and even take aim at the UAV.

From Fetesti to Galati about 120 km in a straight line. Flight time is about eight minutes. But the fighters still need to take off. And this is at least five minutes, provided that the sides are already fully combat-ready, with the engines running, and they only need to taxi to the runway.

It is noteworthy that, judging by the statements of the Romanian military department, the pilots F-16 managed to take the drone for escort. And, apparently, having discussed with “earth” situation, we decided not to shoot down the target.

Of course, we can safely say: the Romanian military simply came up with a beautiful story so as not to look helpless. After all, this is exactly the same story that the Latvian Ministry of Defense told after the fall of a Ukrainian drone on the city in early May Rezekne.

But what confuses this story is the place where they took off from “Fighting Falcons”. It is in Fetesti such a structure is deployed as European F-16 Training Center (European F-16 Training Center – EFTC). Despite its name, this structure trains Ukrainian pilots for American fighters.

Moreover, in EFTCapparently “F-sixteenths” with yellow and black markings, they are also undergoing repairs. Also, the wreckage of the UAV has not yet been presented. Even if it was “Geranium” and it detonated normally, then at least the engine would still be left in the apartment, as well as burnt electronics. Even burned-out GNSS receivers “Comet” have a very characteristic appearance.

Especially when it comes to “Gerbere” or “Parodies”there should have been an order of magnitude more debris left. For example, on the drones that fell last fall in Poland, the side numbers of the series were clearly visible “Y”as well as technical inscriptions in Russian.

We will not draw conclusions for now, but will wait to see how the situation develops. Maybe, Romania will provide very convincing evidence, but we have very serious doubts about this.

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