'No-one feels safe now': Residents of Romanian city hit by drone share fears

People have just begun returning to check on their homes in the block that was hit early on Friday morning. 'No-one feels safe now': Residents of Romanian city hit by drone share fears 'I will sleep with fear': Romanians shaken after Russian drone strike Copyright current_year BBC. All rights reserved. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking. Copyright current_year BBC. All rights reserved. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking. Forensic investigators examine the location of impact after a Russian drone struck an apartment building in Galati, eastern Romania Southern and Eastern Europe correspondent Composite image showing on the left damage and debris, and on the right, a man with white hair wearing a brown top In some parts of Europe, Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine can feel like a distant threat. But in Romania, that war is right next door and increasingly dangerous. In Galati, there is an apartment block with a hole in the roof that proves it. Residents have just begun returning to check on their homes, after an attack drone slammed into the building early on Friday as dozens of people slept. We climbed 11 floors up to the roof on Saturday to see where the drone punched through the concrete. There's a jagged hole, a couple of metres wide, now covered with plastic. The flat below was badly damaged, and a woman and her teenage son remain in hospital with bruises and minor burns. Four men in police vests, as well as a man in a white hazmat suit, a helmet and a face mask, are seen stood next to a building which has a hole in its side following the drone hit Nato and EU condemn Russia after drone hits Romanian residential block But it's clear the consequences of this strike could have been far worse: the drone hit the lift shaft on the roof, which absorbed much of the blast. "It was really very terrifying," says Costel Patrichi, a resident who's in charge of the building. "But if the drone had hit the side, it could have destroyed a whole floor or more." He describes how his phone buzzed with an alert that morning just before 02:00, warning of the danger: a drone was approaching from the Ukrainian border a few miles away. "They told us we are protected by Nato, not to worry. But look where we are now!" Costel tells me, frustrated like many that Romania's air force couldn't intercept the drone. The jagged hole made by the drone has now been covered with plastic The site of a drone strike on a residential block roof covered with wood panels and blue plastic. When a Ukrainian drone targeting northern Russia was recently knocked off course into Estonia, it was a Romanian fighter jet there that shot it down. Here, though, pilots only had moments to react before the weapon was over a built-up area. At that point, interception was too risky. "Now I'm afraid. If go back to my flat tonight, I will sleep with fear. Because this could happen again," Costel admits. It is the same fear that Ukrainians endure nightly as Russia launches ever more attack drones at its neighbour. Very often, they smash into residential areas, destroying homes and taking lives. Now Romania, a member of both Nato and the EU, has been hit. It is the most serious incident of its kind in this country since Russia's full-scale invasion began in 2022. True to form, Russian President Vladimir Putin claims there is no evidence this was a Russian drone. But Romania has been very clear: it was a Geran-2, otherwise called a Shahed, and it was Russian. "If go back to my flat tonight, I will sleep with fear," says Costel Patrichi Costel Patrichi stands in front of an apartment block wearing a dark hoodie and tan turtle-neck jumper. "It's sure, because we had another one four or five weeks ago that didn't explode. We compared and they are completely identical," Romania's President Nicosur Dan told the BBC World Service. The drones are used to target Ukrainian ports on the other side of the river Danube that are vitally important to Ukraine's grain exports. On Friday, Romania tracked a swarm of 43 of them as they travelled from east to west. "One hit by the Ukrainian army changed direction and passed to Romanian territory. That is sure," Dan said. Romania's Nato allies have called Russia's conduct "reckless" and stressed that Moscow's war of aggression was to blame for what happened. In Washington, though, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio ignored reporters' requests to comment. And there is clearly caution in the response, as well as condemnation. No-one is accusing Moscow of mounting a deliberate attack on Romania. And whilst government sources in Bucharest tell us they considered invoking Article 4 of the Nato treaty, which would trigger an emergency meeting, that idea was rejected to avoid creating panic. The next potential step would have been Article 5: the mutual defence clause, under which an attack on one member is considered an attack on all. Instead, Romania has shut down a Russian consulate in the port city of Constanta as a "warning", according to its president. Dan said the next move in the "diplomatic hierarchy of measures" would be to kick out the Russian ambassador. Adrian, pictured with his partner Ingrid, described the drone strike as "insane" after checking on his family's flat Adrian, wearing a white t-shirt and grey jacket, stands next to Ingrid, wearing a black leather jacket, outside the apartment block. Romania has called for Nato to move faster with a pledge to transfer more military equipment to this stretch of its eastern edge. The government is already acquiring drones of its own and has plans to develop others in co-operation with Ukrainian companies. The EU was already working on a new set of sanctions against Moscow. But the risk of this war escalating and expanding has rarely felt greater - and the people we met in Galati feel very vulnerable. "This was insane, it happened right in the middle of town," says Adrian, after checking his own family's flat in the building that was hit. For that, he blames Russia and its president. "But I don't think the sanctions are enough," Adrian adds. "Because they could take everything from Russia, and they would still attack." Two screen shots from videos edited next to each other with a BBC Verify logo. One of the images is a screenshot from a drone video showing three military trucks driving on a road, the second is a truck on fire. Ukraine using AI drones to strike vital convoys supplying Russian troops Emergency service workers and vehicles outside an apartment building hit by a drone, in the city of Galati, Romania What is Nato and which countries are in it? A Russian drone hit a block of flats in Romania on Friday, causing a fire and injuring two people, Romanian officials say. Romania says the Russian drone was likely hit over Ukraine by its air defences and altered its trajectory. Ilie Bolojan lost the vote after the largest party in his coalition joined the far-right opposition to depose him. BBC Verify has analysed videos of attacks in occupied Ukraine on Russian trucks carrying ammunition, fuel and food. The US is considering options for punishing Nato allies which it considers to have failed to offer support during the Iran war, according to a Pentagon memo seen by Reuters. With the US pulling out of trilateral talks with Russia and Ukraine, the EU is looking for potential candidates to step in. Moscow's rhetoric may point to the Kremlin's nervousness over the war's direction, our defence correspondent writes from Kyiv. It comes after the Ukrainian capital suffered one of the biggest aerial assaults of the war overnight on Saturday.