A high-stakes diplomatic trip for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hit an unexpected disruption this week, when a rogue Russian drone crossed into Moldovan airspace just as his aircraft prepared for departure from Chisinau to Oslo. The incursion forced an urgent shutdown of Moldova’s airspace, leaving Zelensky, his wife Olena, and the entire presidential delegation stranded on the runway for nearly an hour before flight operations could resume.
The unexpected hold-up was only lifted after Moldovan authorities confirmed the drone had crashed and exploded 160 kilometers away from Chisinau International Airport in the village of Mihailenii Vechi. Originally scheduled for takeoff at 16:30 local time, the flight’s delay rippled across airport operations: three departing and four arriving commercial flights were also pushed back, according to Moldovan government spokesperson Dumitru Ciorici.
Despite the disruption, Zelensky and his wife landed safely in Oslo on Tuesday evening, where the Ukrainian leader immediately got down to diplomatic business, holding bilateral talks with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and other senior officials focused on securing additional military aid for Ukraine’s war effort. The couple then joined dozens of global dignitaries to attend the funeral of Norway’s late King Harald V, as planned, before continuing their pre-scheduled international tour with a brief stop in Iceland and subsequent travel to Canada for further strategic discussions.
Initial reports of the incident stoked concern over the proximity of the drone to the presidential aircraft, with Støre telling Norwegian public broadcaster NRK that the flight “was almost hit by a drone when it was taking off from Moldova.” However, an anonymous Ukrainian source speaking to Agence France-Presse pushed back on that framing, characterizing the reported risk as “exaggerated.”
This drone incursion into Moldova comes amid a sharp escalation in Russian drone strikes across Ukraine in recent weeks, which has already had deadly spillover into border regions of neighboring countries. Overnight ahead of the incident, a Russian drone attack on a Moldovan border crossing at Starokozache left two people dead. Military analysts note that the Russian military has recently deployed a new fleet of jet-powered drones that fly significantly faster than older models, making them far harder for Ukrainian air defenses to intercept.
Analysis from BBC Verify confirms that Kyiv now faces more frequent air raid alerts than at any point since the initial 2022 invasion, with an average of ten alerts per day. Overnight this week, a Russian strike on a Kyiv petrol station left four people seriously injured, drawing condemnation from Ukrainian energy leaders. Ukrnafta CEO Bohdan Kukura wrote on Facebook that the attack “is terror and intimidation of the civilian population.” Targeting of civilian energy infrastructure has become a consistent Russian strategy in recent months, with hundreds of Ukrainian petrol stations hit in an effort to disrupt Ukrainian military logistics and civilian daily life.
Ukraine has not stood idle in this escalating drone conflict, however, claiming a major breakthrough in long-range strikes this week. On Thursday, Ukrainian officials announced what they called a “record hit” against Russian energy infrastructure, after Ukrainian drones flew more than 3,000 kilometers into northern Russia to strike a key gas processing plant in the Yamalo-Nenets autonomous district of Siberia. Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces called the strike the deepest attack into Russian territory since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022. Yamalo-Nenets is one of Russia’s most critical hubs for oil and gas production and processing, making the strike a significant symbolic and strategic blow to Russian energy operations.
More than four years into the full-scale invasion, diplomatic efforts to end the conflict continue, led by U.S. negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, but so far talks have failed to produce any lasting breakthrough toward a peace agreement.