(Bucharest) NATO member Romania announced on Tuesday that it had started building air raid shelters in the southeastern region bordering Ukraine, where drone debris was discovered last week.
The Eastern European country has decided to step up security measures following repeated Russian attacks on Ukrainian ports and infrastructure on the Danube.
The Romanian army has started work to build two concrete shelters in order to “protect the population” in the town of Plauru, opposite the Ukrainian port of Izmail, the Ministry of Defense wrote in a press release. They will be 9.6 m long, 2 m wide and 1.5 m high inside.
A detachment of around 50 soldiers was deployed to accomplish this task, according to the same source. “Once ready, they will be handed over to local authorities.”
This is where soldiers found drone fragments “similar to those used by the Russian army” on Saturday.
In the process, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis protested to Moscow, condemning “strongly a violation of airspace which constitutes a threat to Romanian citizens” living in this region.
He also met with the NATO Secretary General. “There is no indication that there was an intention to strike NATO, but the attacks are destabilizing,” reacted Jens Stoltenberg on the X network (formerly Twitter).
From now on, residents of the region will be alerted by an alarm on their phone “in the event of a risk of falling elements linked to the conflict”.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, NATO has been working to prevent the war from spreading to its member countries.
According to Article 5 of NATO’s founding treaty, any attack against one of the member countries is supposed to result in a collective response from the organization, which poses the risk of being drawn into a war against Russia, nuclear power.