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Russia's Ministry of Defence said its air defences shot down or neutralised 822 Ukrainian drones between 8 pm Moscow time on 15 August and 8 am on 16 August 2026, one of the largest single barrages of the war.
Regional officials reported at least six civilians killed - five in the Rostov region and one in the Belgorod region.
On the same morning, a Spanish Air and Space Force F-18 on a NATO air-policing mission shot down a drone that had entered Romanian airspace from Moldova.
The drone was engaged at 05:01 over an uninhabited area, with debris located between the villages of Baleni and Cudalbi in Galati County.
Russia said drones were intercepted over a wide arc of its western and southern regions and over the Azov and Black Seas. Romania, a NATO and EU member on the Black Sea, borders both Ukraine and Moldova, and its Galati County sits close to the Moldovan frontier - which is why airspace violations linked to the war keep recurring there.
Air policing is a peacetime collective-defence mission in which allied fighter aircraft monitor and protect the airspace of member states, principally those that do not maintain a permanent fighter force of their own or need reinforcement. Aircraft stand on quick-reaction alert and scramble to identify, escort or, when authorised, engage unidentified aircraft. In this case a Spanish F-18 detachment based in Romania carried out the mission over Romanian territory, which is how an allied air force ends up firing over another member's soil.
Simple Analogy: A shared neighbourhood watch: the patrol car belongs to one household but the beat covers the whole street.
GS Paper 2 > International Relations > Effect of global conflicts; GS Paper 3 > Security
Current Affairs > Global conflicts and military alliances
General Awareness > Current Affairs > International
General Awareness > Current Events
A NATO peacetime mission in which allied fighters guard the airspace of member states on quick-reaction alert.
NATO's frontier states facing Russia and the war zone, from the Baltic states down to Romania and Bulgaria.
A patrol flown by armed fighters over a defined area to intercept hostile or unidentified aircraft.