Moldova said on Saturday that five Russian air-attack weapons crossed into its airspace and exploded on its territory during Russia's overnight strikes on Ukraine, in the most serious single spillover of the war onto Moldovan soil this autumn. President Maia Sandu condemned the attack and warned that Moscow's war is now directly endangering Moldovan citizens.
"I condemn Russia's attack on Ukraine this morning. Its war is dangerously reaching Moldova," Sandu wrote on X. "Russian air attack weapons, including Banderol missiles and drones, violated our airspace and exploded on our soil." She added that Moscow is "putting lives at risk across Europe and must be stopped."
Fifteen minutes over four districts
Defence Minister Anatolie Nosatyi said Moldovan authorities recorded five separate cases — three missiles and two drones. According to the Defence Ministry, the weapons were tracked between 07:45 and 08:00 near Anenii Noi, Stefan Voda, Tudora and Causeni, a burst of crossings compressed into roughly fifteen minutes.
Explosions were then reported near a string of villages across the country's south and east, including Crocmaz, Delacau, Puhaceni, Bozieni and Hincesti, as well as Dubovca and Constantinovca. Moldova's Foreign Ministry said drone fragments were found outside Causeni, near Dubovca, between Delacau and Puhaceni, and near Crocmaz, where one impact set vegetation alight and caused property damage. Police and army teams were sent to secure the debris, and officials urged residents not to approach suspicious fragments and to call 112. No casualties were reported.
The Moldovan incidents came during another heavy overnight assault on Ukraine itself. Ukrainian regional authorities said Russian attacks over the past day killed at least eight civilians and injured 83 others, while Ukraine's Air Force said Russia launched more than 150 drones in the overnight wave.
Chisinau protests, Moscow denies
Chisinau summoned the Russian ambassador and handed over a protest note demanding an end to the violations — the second such summons in a matter of days. The Foreign Ministry said it "strongly condemned" the breach, stressing that "Russia's war against Ukraine continues to pose concrete threats to our country and to the security of the entire region."
Only on Thursday, the ministry had summoned the ambassador after three Russian drones violated Moldovan airspace in a single day, two of which crashed and exploded. The ministry said Moldova's airspace had been violated eight times in the past seven days alone. Moscow did not immediately comment on Saturday's allegations, but Ambassador Oleg Ozerov, after his earlier visit to the ministry, accused Chisinau of ignoring Russian proposals for joint investigations and told the state-run Tass agency: "We are fed up with unsubstantiated accusations. We have received no evidence that the drone is of Russian origin."
A pattern that is accelerating
Saturday's explosions are not an isolated mishap. Moldova, a small, formally neutral country wedged between Romania and Ukraine, has recorded repeated airspace violations and debris falls as Russia strikes Ukraine's southern ports and border regions. Separate drone and missile incidents were reported in late September and in August, including a Banderol cruise missile that crashed in a cornfield near Talmaz in the Stefan Voda district. Moldovan officials say the country has logged 81 airspace violations by Russian and Iranian-made missiles and drones since the full-scale invasion began in 2022, 44 of them this year alone.
For Chisinau's pro-European government, the political meaning is hard to miss: each new wave of Russian strikes on Ukraine now routinely crosses a NATO neighbour's frontier in practice, if not in intent, testing how much spillover Europe will absorb without consequence. Sandu's message on Saturday was aimed as much at Western capitals as at Moscow — Russia can stop this war today, she argued, and until it does, Ukraine needs support to defend its people and, by extension, Moldova's peace.
No one in Moldova was hurt this time. But five weapons exploding across four districts in fifteen minutes is not background noise from a distant war. It is the war arriving, uninvited, in the fields and villages of a country that has chosen Europe — and a reminder that every Russian strike package aimed at Ukraine now carries a European risk whether the Kremlin admits it or not.
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