Overview
- Ukraine’s first deputy defence minister confirmed late last week that Russia has started installing electronic-warfare equipment on Shahed-style attack drones to try to jam or disrupt Ukrainian interceptor drones.
- A Russian drone that was part of a larger overnight strike campaign crashed into an apartment block in Galați, Romania, on Friday and injured two people, marking the first incident in this phase to cause civilian harm on NATO territory.
- Ukrainian air-defence forces reported destroying or suppressing roughly 279 drones and five Kh-101 cruise missiles during the same series of attacks, underscoring the scale of recent combined drone-and-missile barrages.
- Romania expelled a Russian consul and asked NATO and EU partners to accelerate transfers of anti-drone and short-range air-defence systems, while NATO leaders publicly condemned the incursion and pledged to bolster allied defenses.
- The developments show a fast-moving interceptor–countermeasure arms race—Russia adding rear cameras, air-to-air weapons, jet-powered variants and EW on drones while Kyiv scales cheap interceptors and allies consider faster deliveries of layered air defenses, raising the risk of further cross-border spillovers.