Norway PM says drone nearly hit Zelenskyy’s plane in Moldova; Kyiv disputes danger

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store said a Russian jet-powered drone came close enough to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s aircraft as it prepared to depart Moldova on Tuesday that it was the reality Mr. Zelenskyy lives with — a characterization Mr. Zelenskyy’s own office quickly disputed as overstated.

Mr. Zelenskyy was flying from Chisinau, Moldova, to Oslo to attend the funeral of Norway’s King Harald V when Moldovan authorities detected an unidentified drone in the country’s airspace and grounded his plane along with several other flights, according to a timeline reconstructed by Euronews. Mr. Store did not reveal the account publicly until Wednesday, telling Norwegian broadcaster NRK that the president’s flight was nearly struck.

A source inside Mr. Zelenskyy’s presidency offered a more measured version of events, telling AFP that what actually happened was an airspace alert triggered when a Russian drone crossed into Moldovan and Romanian territory. The source called the suggestion that Zelenskyy had been in danger “exaggerated.”

Moldovan authorities said the drone entered the country from Ukraine, crossed into Romanian airspace and then returned to Moldova before crashing in a sunflower field near Mihailenii Vechi, about 100 miles from Chisinau International Airport. Spanish fighter jets flying NATO air-policing patrols tracked the drone during its passage through Romanian airspace, according to the Euronews timeline. The crash sparked several small fires; no injuries were reported. Mr. Zelenskyy’s plane was cleared for takeoff only after officials confirmed the drone had come down. Ukrainian open-source monitoring channels identified the aircraft as a Geran-4, a newer jet-powered strike drone in Russia’s arsenal that flies faster and is harder to intercept than older Shahed-style models, per the same Euronews reporting.

Moldovan President Maia Sandu called the airspace violation a serious threat to people’s lives. The incident came a day before a separate and far deadlier Russian strike hit the Starokazache-Tudora border crossing between Ukraine and Moldova, killing two people and injuring three others, according to RFE/RL. Moldovan Prime Minister Vasile Tofan said the war was increasingly endangering the lives of our citizens as well.

Mr. Zelenskyy arrived safely in Oslo on Tuesday evening and met with Mr. Store, Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg and Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide to discuss Norwegian military and air-defense aid before attending Wednesday’s state funeral for King Harald, who died Aug. 28 at 89. He then traveled on to Canada for talks with officials there.

The airspace scare unfolded as U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner shuttled between Moscow and Kyiv in a renewed push to revive stalled peace negotiations, and as Moldova, which borders both Ukraine and Romania, continues to report recurring incursions tied to Russian strikes on its neighbor.