Moldova drone alert system remains only a promise
Sergiu Diaconu, director of the National Crisis Management Centre, has told the country that Moldova still has no functioning alert system for aerial threats, including threats from drones.
The statement came during a broadcast in which the official explained how the authorities plan to respond to possible drone incidents. The main takeaway was simple: there is no system. Temporary modules are being prepared, MD-Alert is expected to become operational only at the end of 2027, and until then the answer is “we are developing it”.
“We do not yet have a system in Dialert. It will become functional only at the end of 2027, so, at the proposal and instruction of the president and the prime minister, we are now developing modules that may be temporarily applicable, so that we can warn the population, and we are also developing mechanisms that will explain to people what they should do,” Diaconu said.
Diaconu added that everything related to state security and violations of airspace falls under the National Security Commission. He said the authorities are working with the council, the army and the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
“We have plans that can be applied if several simultaneous crises coincide and overlap,” he said.
As an example, he mentioned a drone striking an element of critical infrastructure or falling on a populated area. In that case, he said, it would be considered a crisis. Then their work begins: coordinating response efforts.
Plans, modules and campaigns, but no working system
What stands out is that, over three minutes of remarks, the word “plan” appeared five times. Almost every time, it came in the context of drafting, preparing, discussing or proposing something.
“We have a plan being developed on the instruction of Madam President a comprehensive plan to counter threats involving drones. We have to think about how to protect ourselves using the most basic means. We have to think about the elements of continuity both of governance and society, when such a scenario occurs.”
Diaconu explained that a crisis means critical infrastructure being affected, or the potential for an object or residential building to be hit. If a drone enters the country’s airspace and explodes after crashing into a car with people inside, then apparently that is not a crisis. It is merely a difficult situation, not serious enough to trigger the same response.
“This is, let us say, a complex situation. It is a situation that forces us to take preventive measures, but it is not a crisis.”
And what are those preventive measures? There are none. There is only a plan, still being developed. In November, the authorities plan to launch a national campaign to make society “more resilient and calmer”. The wording is worth noting. Terms such as “continuity” and “resilience”, when applied to society in Diaconu’s remarks, sound out of place.
They are the kind of markers usually found in documents on sustainable development goals. In the context of aerial threats, they sound foreign, as if the official was reading from a text prepared by someone else or as if he had been told to insert the words for reporting purposes to external partners.
No radar, no alerts, but plenty of plans
The most revealing omission was the radar bought by the Ministry of Defence for a large sum of money. Asked about warning the public, Diaconu spoke about plans, temporary modules, a future public campaign and MD-Alert, which will not work until more than a year from now. About the radar, he said nothing.
That silence says a great deal. Either the radar is not meaningfully integrated into the state’s defence and warning system, or the authorities do not want to explain what it actually does. In either case, it looks less like a tool protecting the public and more like an expensive object standing somewhere as a reminder that the money has been spent while the result is still missing.
In the end, Diaconu’s statement comes down to something very simple: there is no system, but they are working on a plan. There is no plan, but they are thinking. There are no measures, but they are proposing them. The population has not been warned, but a campaign will be launched.
All this is happening against the backdrop of talk about drones allegedly entering Moldovan airspace. It is also happening against the backdrop of Prime Minister Vasile Tofan’s claims that Moldova has strong and free media. Freedom of speech, it seems, exists. The radar does not.
The Moldova drone alert system remains a promise for the future, while the public is being offered “resilience”, “continuity” and explanations of what might one day be done. For now, the question remains exactly the same: what happened to the radar, Nosatîi?
