Sofia Davydenko13:27, 29.05.26

Bucharest revealed details of the incident in Galați.

The Romanian Ministry of Defense  commented on the fact that the military did not intercept a Russian drone that hit a ten-story residential building in the city of Galati, Digi 24 TV channel reports.

Brigadier General Gheorghe Maksym named several reasons why the drone could not be shot down.

“The first limitation we have is legal: we cannot fire in a way that would affect the airspace of a neighboring country. In addition, hitting an air target requires a certain amount of time, which involves detection, identification, and destruction. The 4 minutes we had at our disposal were an extremely short time,” said General Maksym.

A separate issue arose regarding the “Cheetah” systems, which also failed to work. As the general explained, in peacetime the army cannot deploy such weapons without the consent of the owners of land plots and facilities.

“We must have the consent of the owners, business entities, to place such systems that have a limited effect from 1.5 km to 6 km… Because private property is protected by law. Now is peacetime. Where we received consent, we installed systems. Where we did not receive consent, we did not install them,” he said.

Maksym also noted that the existing air defense systems were developed before 2023 – that is, before the start of a large-scale “drone war.” 

Defense Ministry spokesman Cristian Popovici, for his part, added that the army “cannot risk creating more threats than it can prevent,” and stressed that the military operates within a strict legal framework.

(C)UNIAN 2026