A jet-propelled drone crossed into Moldovan airspace on Tuesday just as a plane carrying Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was preparing to leave Chișinău, forcing air traffic controllers to shut the country's skies and ground the aircraft until the drone went down roughly 160 kilometers (100 miles) away.
Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, who was awaiting Zelensky's arrival ahead of King Harald V's funeral, disclosed the incident publicly. "His plane was nearly hit by a drone as it was about to take off from Moldova," Støre said. "This is the reality he faces." Zelensky's aircraft sat on the tarmac at Chișinău International Airport until the airspace reopened, then flew on to Norway before continuing to Canada.
According to reporting from the Kyiv Independent, the suspected Shahed-type drone entered Moldovan airspace at about 4:20 p.m. local time and crossed into neighboring Romania roughly 17 minutes later, prompting Chișinău International Airport to halt arrivals and departures and sending inbound flights into holding patterns or diversions. A second drone was also tracked over Moldovan territory the same afternoon. No injuries were reported from either incursion.
Moldova's ambassador to the United States, Vladislav Kulminski, told CNN the timing was unlikely to be coincidental. "We do not believe in jet propelled drones just flying into Moldova's territory for surveillance purposes while the Ukrainian president's airplane is on the ground at the airport," he said. Asked directly whether investigators believe the drone was aimed at Zelensky's plane, Kulminski said it was "too early to say" and that an inquiry was under way.
A Pattern of Incursions
The near-miss lands in the middle of a war that has repeatedly spilled beyond Ukraine's borders. Russian drones and missiles have crossed into the airspace of Moldova and Romania — both non-NATO and NATO territory, respectively — with rising frequency over the past year, occasionally prompting the scrambling of fighter jets from alliance members. Moldova, which enshrines neutrality in its constitution and is not a NATO member, has limited means to intercept such incursions on its own and has repeatedly protested them through diplomatic channels.
The incident also came the same day a separate Russian drone strike hit a shopping center in Sumy, in northeastern Ukraine, killing two people and wounding about 20 others — a reminder that Tuesday's aerial activity was part of a broader, continuing bombardment rather than an isolated event tied only to Zelensky's travel.
Moldovan President Maia Sandu condemned the incursions as "a serious threat to people's lives," a formulation she has used before for previous violations of Moldovan airspace. The country's government has periodically summoned Russia's ambassador over such episodes and has pressed European partners, including EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, for stronger air-defense support, arguing that its small, under-equipped military cannot reliably track or down fast-moving drones on its own.
Zelensky was traveling to Oslo Cathedral for the state funeral of King Harald V before continuing to Canada, part of a diplomatic schedule that has kept him crisscrossing Europe and North America even as the war with Russia grinds through its fourth year. The Ukrainian leader has faced at least one previous scare involving unexplained aircraft activity near his travel, feeding persistent, unproven suspicions among Ukrainian officials that Moscow has weighed targeting him directly — suspicions Russian officials have consistently denied.
Moldovan authorities said the investigation into Tuesday's incursion continues, and officials have not said whether the drone was armed or what caused it to come down short of the Romanian border. A separate account from Fox News confirmed the airport shutdown and the timing relative to Zelensky's departure. For now, the episode has added Moldova to the list of countries — alongside Poland and Romania — where Russian drones have crossed into sovereign airspace this year, deepening anxiety among Ukraine's neighbors about how far the war's debris is prepared to travel.
