Weekly Roundup: Drones and Missiles in Moldova

All last week I was attending the Moldova Security Forum and related events. The time I spent there combined with an avalanche of news to make this roundup a 2 part affair. Today we’re going to look at the most important new stories affecting Moldova’s national security. Tomorrow we’ll circle back with part 2 which will deal with other political updates.

Multiple Drones Violate Moldovan Airspace

On the night of November 18-19 a small, unarmed drone violated Moldovan airspace when it flew near the village of Saiți, Causeni, before re-entering Ukrainian airspace. It flew at low altitude, approximately 100 meters, and was therefore not picked up by Moldovan radars. On the same night a drone entered Romanian airspace and flew for around 8 km, where it also allegedly crossed into parts of Moldova and Ukraine.

Analysts were unclear whether these were 2 different drones or the same one. What is clear is that the drone passed close to the strategically vital Vulcănești power station. This station is the starting point of the Vulcănești-Chisinau high voltage line which is currently under construction (updates in part 2 on the progress). In response to the air incursion in Romania NATO scrambled 4 fighter jets, 2 Romanian and 2 German.

A much larger incursion took place on the night of November 24-25, where the Moldovan army’s airspace surveillance systems detected 6 drones entering the country’s airspace. This was in the context of a massive Russian bombardment of Ukraine that night.

The first drone was reportedly a Shahed which passed through Moldova to Romania around Vinogradovca - Vulcănești. 5 more entered Moldova’s airspace all across the North and East of the country in Dondușeni, Orhei, Bender, Vadul lui Vodă and Florești.

One drone crash landed on the roof of a house in Cuhurestii de Jos, Floresti district.

Police evacuated the area, which was an isolated house in a field used by agricultural workers. Following an inspection it was found to have no explosive payload. The authorities identified it as a Russian Gerbera (wikipedia) drone.

Gerbera drones are generally used as decoys. They are lightweight (18 kg) and indistinguishable from a Shahed or Geran-2 on radar. Gerbera drones can carry around 5-10 kg of TNT and they also have surveillance capabilities. Even the decoys often carry a camera to record Ukrainian air defense positions and report this intelligence back to inform future attacks.

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