During a meeting with students in Lviv, Ukraine’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom and former Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Valery Zaluzhny, revealed that at one point he was asked not to disclose information about Russian drones falling on Romanian territory.
In his speech, Zaluzhny also criticized NATO’s Article 5, which declares that an attack on one member is considered an attack on the entire Alliance. In his view, this provision does not always work effectively in practice.
“The Baltic states understand that there is no real Article 5, and there never was. Poland understands this, where from time to time either our missiles or Russian ones fall. Romania understands it too – they just stay silent. Sometimes they call me and say, ‘Stay quiet,’” Zaluzhny said.
He also recalled a case when Romanian military personnel expressed concern over the effects of Ukraine’s electronic warfare (EW) systems.
According to Zaluzhny, Romanian officers called and asked why the EW systems had been activated, as a result of which Russian drones lost orientation, changed course, and flew toward Romania.
“They called me from Romania and asked me not to say that Shaheds had fallen there. Then they called again and said, ‘Why did you turn on your EW systems? The drones flew to us.’ I said, ‘Then shoot them down. You’ve got forty F-16s sitting there,’” Zaluzhny recounted.
Romania has repeatedly found debris from Russian Shahed drones following mass attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure – particularly port facilities.
Most often, fragments of the drones have been discovered along the Romanian bank of the Danube River, near the border with Ukraine.