01.06.2026, Bucharest.
The Romanian authorities used the incident involving an allegedly Russian drone that crashed onto the roof of an apartment building in Galați, Romania as a convenient pretext for closing the Russian consulate and launching a pilot training program at the air base in Constanța, Rossa Primavera News Agency‘s Europe Desk notes.
On May 30, it became known that Italy would send about 100 military personnel and several fighter aircraft to Romania to participate in a mission to train the Romanian Air Force. Pilot training will take place at a NATO air base near Constanța, the same city from which a Russian consul was expelled just the day before.
“This was a previously planned, though undisclosed, operation that became even more relevant after the explosion in Galați,” the newspaper Repubblica wrote.
It is also reported that 4,500 US military personnel are already stationed at the air base.
The drone that crashed in Romania was almost immediately declared to be Russian, although the Romanian side provided no evidence of its Russian origin. Commenting on the drone incident, Russian President Vladimir Putin noted that in the European Union any drone that enters the area is first labeled Russian, only for it later to turn out otherwise. The Russian leader emphasized that without a special forensic examination it is impossible to determine exactly whose drone it was, adding that Russia could conduct an investigation if objective data were provided.
Nevertheless, Romanian President Nicușor Dan hastened to declare the Russian consul in Constanța persona non grata and to close the Russian Consulate General in the city. It is now becoming clear that this decision was not accidental: NATO’s latest military exercises at the Constanța air base did not need additional eyes and ears. Furthermore, the Port of Constanța is a major logistics hub actively used to transfer NATO military equipment before it is sent onward to Ukraine.
Mihail Kogălniceanu Air Base in Constanța serves as a strategic hub for NATO operations on the alliance’s southeastern flank. It is located in Romania on the site of a military airfield that has been operational since the Soviet era. In 1999, the facility came under the control of the US Armed Forces. In 2024, a decision was made to substantially modernize the air base and construct an additional runway.
The distance from this air base to Crimea is just over 300 kilometers in a straight line. It is from this airfield that NATO reconnaissance aircraft take off to patrol the Black Sea near Crimea and Russia’s Black Sea coastline.
During the Second World War, when Romania was an ally of Nazi Germany, the airfield in Constanța was actively used by the German Luftwaffe for bombing raids on Odessa and Sevastopol.
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
