Merve Gül Aydoğan Ağlarcı
02 June 2026•Update: 02 June 2026
The UN on Monday reiterated warnings over the “potential spillover” of the Ukraine war after a drone identified by Romanian authorities as Russian crashed into a residential building in the southeastern city of Galati, injuring two people.
“Last Friday, a dangerous incident crystallized our oft-stated warnings about the potential spillover of the war,” Kayoko Gotoh, director of the Europe and Central Asia Division for the UN Departments of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs and Peace Operations, told the UN Security Council.
She said that on the night of May 28-29, “an armed drone exploded on the top floor of a 10-story residential building in the eastern Romanian city of Galati, injuring two residents — a woman and a child.”
Claiming that it was not the first reported breach of Romanian airspace by an armed drone since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Gotoh said the incident came amid “a worrying trend of drone incursions into the airspaces and territorial waters of countries bordering either Ukraine or the Russian Federation.”
“The United Nations strongly condemns all attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure,” she said.
“Such attacks, wherever they occur, violate international humanitarian law and must cease immediately. Civilians must be protected at all times,” Gotoh added.
Warning of the risks of escalation, she said: “As the Secretary-General stressed last week, the dangerous trajectory of escalation and intensification that we are witnessing today risks getting out of control.”
“The current course must change,” she stressed.
“The risk of miscalculation is particularly dangerous for the safety of nuclear facilities,” she said, adding that “attacks on nuclear sites are reckless and unacceptable.”
She called on all parties to exercise restraint and avoid actions that could further destabilize the situation.
“Dialogue and negotiations” should resume immediately, she said, stressing that diplomacy must be given a chance to create conditions for peace in Ukraine.
“A peace that contributes to a more stable regional and international environment,” she added.
Meanwhile, Russia’s UN envoy Vassily Nebenzia claimed that Romania had made “biased accusations” and said: “It is regrettable that Romania failed to provide any objective data to the Russian side and immediately began implementing the political agenda of its senior partners.”
“Western Russophobes are essentially creating new pretexts to close their ranks in opposition against Russia and to maintain bloc discipline, including encouraging continued military support for the Zelenskyy regime,” he said.
Romania’s Foreign Minister Luminita Odobescu also attended the Council’s meeting on the drone incident and condemned “this reckless behavior and repeatedly real intrusion by Russian vehicles into our sovereign territory, irrespective of what was their initial destination.”
“This most recent incident is an extremely unsettling reality, as it shows an increasing pattern of indiscriminate drone strikes injuring civilians across the border, and such behavior is unacceptable under the UN Charter and international law,” she added.
According to Romanian authorities, a Russian drone struck a 10-story apartment block in the early hours of Friday, causing an explosion and fire that injured two people.
Russian President Vladimir Putin asked Romania to conduct an investigation into the matter. He pointed out that Ukrainian drones had previously crossed into Finland, Poland and the Baltic states, initially triggering accusations against Moscow before investigations produced different conclusions.