Fighter jets help destroy Russian drone boat near European offshore gas platform
This week, Romania accused Russia of sending a drone boat loaded with explosives to a vital European natural gas platform in the Black Sea. A Romanian F-16 fighter jet used its cannons to disable the surface drone so that explosive ordnance experts could blow it up safely.
On August 20, the Romanian Coast Guard first spotted the maritime drone a few hundred meters away from the Neptun Deep project's main drilling platform, where several hundred workers were busy with the platform's ongoing installation, Defense Minister Radu Miru said in a Facebook post. The offshore gas project would make Romania the largest gas producer in the European Union once it starts full production in 2027.
To protect the lives of the workers and the offshore gas infrastructure, the Romanian military scrambled two F-16 fighter jets to stop the drone with cannon fire, Miru said. Army specialists later carried out a controlled detonation, as seen in a Facebook video shared by the defense minister.