PUTIN ON THE DRONE CRASH IN ROMANIA

During his press conference in Astana, Kazakhstan yesterday, after the Eurasian Economic Union meetings, Russian President Vladimir Putin was asked by a reporter about the drone that crashed in Galati, Romania, the night before. The reporter named Ursula von der Leyen as among those who labeled the incident as a Russian attack.

“Ms von der Leyen has not been to Romania. She has not examined the remains of that drone. No one can determine the origin of a particular aircraft until a proper examination has been conducted,” he replied.

“After all, we know that Ukrainian drones have previously flown into Finland, Poland, and the Baltic states. The initial reaction was exactly the same as it is now in Romania: ‘Help! The Russians are coming, the Russians are attacking.’ Then, after a short period of time, it turned out that those incidents had nothing to do with Russian UAVs.“

“They were drones of Ukrainian origin that had gone off course, been affected by electronic warfare, or, due to technical limitations, had ended up there and crashed. I believe that most likely we are dealing with the same situation as well.“

“However, if they provide us with objective data—as we once did with representatives of the US administration by handing over information and drone fragments from an attempted strike on one of the residences of the President of the Russian Federation to be examined—then let them provide those materials to us.”

“We will conduct an objective investigation, and only then will we be in a position to assess what has actually happened.”