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What did the 13 September 2025 drone incursion show?
Summary
A look back at a day when a Russian drone entered Romanian airspace and Polish flights were disrupted again.
What happened on 13 September 2025, and why did it matter for NATO's eastern flank? A Russian drone breached Romanian airspace, and NATO forces scrambled fighter jets in response. The incident was logged among violations of non-combatant airspaces during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The same day, Lublin Airport in eastern Poland was closed for the second time that week because of the threat of Russian drones. Two countries on the alliance's eastern edge were therefore dealing with drone-related disruption at once, one through an airspace breach and the other through an airport closure.
The backdrop in Poland was already tense. On 11 September 2025, Poland indefinitely closed its border with Belarus and deployed 40,000 troops to it. Warsaw cited security concerns over Russian–Belarusian military exercises near the region, the first such exercises since 2022.
Taken together, the reports from 11 and 13 September 2025 show a week in which Poland and Romania were responding to security pressure from several directions: military drills near the border, drones in the air and closed infrastructure on the ground.
