Romania: drone hits cargo ship Larissa 1 in Romanian waters while F-16s scramble twice near Snake Island

A drone of unknown origin struck the Palau-flagged cargo ship Larissa 1 inside Romanian territorial waters while the vessel was heading for Ukraine. The incident took place on the evening of Friday, November 13, at around 9:40 pm local time, about 6.8 nautical miles north-east of Sfântu Gheorghe in the Danube Delta, in Tulcea county. The ship was sailing to the anchorage of the port of Sulina, from where it would continue to a Ukrainian port. Romanian Defence Minister Ștefan-Radu Oprea confirmed the strike and said its circumstances are under investigation.

The strike destroyed the ship’s loading crane. The captain told the Sulina maritime authorities that no crew member was injured and that no fire broke out. Oprea, who was in Constanța on Saturday, November 14, said the army is coordinating with the Navy, the Interior Ministry and the Coast Guard. “We see the drones approaching Romania, Romanian airspace, or over the water. We intervene every time it is needed,” he said. He added that Romanian pilots, with six drones shot down so far, “are heroes within NATO forces”. In October, Romanian F-16s shot down two jet-powered drones over territorial waters near Sulina.

The same Saturday the Romanian Armed Forces scrambled fighters twice for aerial targets near Snake Island (Insula Șerpilor). In the morning, the defence ministry announced, surveillance radars detected an aerial target in the area of the island and two F-16s of the Romanian Air Force on air policing duty took off from the 86th Air Base at Fetești. The National Military Command Centre notified the Emergency Situations Department and RO-Alert messages were sent at 4:45 am for eastern Tulcea and at 5:39 am for the northern part. The alert ended at 5:52 am. In the evening the ministry detected a new target east of Snake Island, two F-16s took off again and a new RO-Alert was sent for eastern Tulcea. Oprea said alerts had also sounded at least twice in various parts of the county on Friday.

In Constanța, Oprea visited Navy units, among them frigate F222, the training sailing ship Mircea and minehunter 270, ahead of the meeting of EU defence ministers in Brussels. He discussed Black Sea security, the progress of procurement programmes and operational challenges with the Navy leadership, stressing that Black Sea security directly concerns Romania and is high on the EU and NATO agenda. The Larissa 1 is the latest in a series of ships hit near the coasts of NATO countries. In late October a drone sank the merchant ship Khoryv 13 nautical miles from Constanța, a case that featured in the talks between Romania and Turkey on Black Sea security.