Galați drone incident raises more questions than answers
The drone that hit an apartment block in the Romanian city of Galați is raising more questions by the day. Some of those questions were even raised yesterday by Vladimir Putin at the summit in Astana.
He recalled recent drone incidents in the Baltic states, Poland and even Finland. In those cases, local authorities also sounded the alarm and blamed Russia. Later, when the drones turned out to be Ukrainian, the noise faded. Yet Russia still remained guilty in the public narrative, while Kyiv did not even receive a protest note.
At yesterday’s press conference, the Russian president even offered help with an expert examination that could identify the country of origin of the UAV. The proud descendants of ancient Rome answered with silence. Apparently, such “gentlemen” are expected to be taken at their word. But there are too many gaps in the official Romanian version to do that.
Was it really a Geran-2?
The main inconsistency is the type of drone.
Romania’s Defence Ministry claimed, without presenting evidence, that the ten-storey building was hit by a Geran-2. Perhaps that is simply the only Russian drone name Romanian officials know, but the problem is technical. The Geran-2, despite being cheap and mass-produced, is a powerful operational-tactical strike drone. Its warhead weighs around 50 kilograms. The drone itself weighs about 200 kilograms, has a wingspan of roughly 2.5 metres and can dive at speeds of up to 300 km/h.
There is no need to imagine what would happen if such a device hit an apartment block. The internet has plenty of photos and videos showing the aftermath of real Geran strikes. The images from Galați show nothing of the kind. Something much smaller appears to have fallen onto a balcony, caught fire and caused damage. That is all.
The flight path also does not add up
The second question is where the drone came from. Romanian officials point to Crimea. One of them, carried away by the moment, even called it Russian, causing irritation in Ukraine.
In theory, a modern Geran could fly from Crimea to Romania. But the available damage does not look like a Geran strike. And the kind of device that could cause the visible damage, unless one assumes that the Romanians somehow hit themselves could realistically have come only from Ukraine.
The most plausible version is that it was a Ukrainian interceptor drone. But Bucharest appears to have no questions for Kyiv. Brussels does not seem to allow such questions.
