Romanian President Nicușor Dan said in an interview with the BBC on Saturday, he has no doubt it was a Russian Geran-2 drone which entered his country's airspace and hit an apartment block in the east of the country, following an incident involving an attack on the Ukrainian port of Reni, in the Danube region. In the interview, President Dan did not rule out expelling the Russian ambassador should there be further incidents of this kind.

'First of all, it is certain that it was a Russian Geran-2 drone. We know this because we had another one four or five weeks ago that did not explode, and we compared the remains of both drones - the one that exploded yesterday and the one that arrived a month ago - and they are completely identical. So we can say for sure that it is a Russian Geran-2 drone. Secondly, we know the flight path. In fact, there was a swarm of 43 drones that targeted the port of Reni, the western Danube port in the Odesa region, in the western part of Ukraine in the Black Sea area. One of them, hit by the Ukrainian army, changed direction and entered Romanian territory,' said the Romanian president.

At the BBC's insistence, Nicușor Dan confirmed that the incident was not a deliberate targeting of Romania, but rather a consequence of Ukrainian defensive action against the Russian drone. However, he stated that Russian President Vladimir Putin's claims regarding the drone's origin are false. 'We can say for sure that it was a Geran-2 Russian drone,' Dan emphasized.

Regarding Bucharest's diplomatic response to the incident - the closure of the Consulate General of the Russian Federation in Constanța and the expulsion of the consul general - Nicușor Dan said that the situation had become dangerous for civilians and that further measures would follow if the incidents continued.

'It is a warning to the Russian side, that measure, and I hope that they will stop. If not, there are other measures that we can take against them,' the president said, adding, when asked about possible further diplomatic steps: 'Expelling the ambassador, for instance. There is a diplomatic hierarchy of measures.'

When asked about the support he expects from NATO, the president explained that Romania needs temporary assistance to protect the approximately 60 kilometres of border along the Danube until it strengthens its own military capabilities. 'What we are asking from our partners is temporary assistance for the 60 kilometres of border along the Danube until we have all the necessary equipment in place,' said Nicușor Dan.

Regarding U.S. support, he noted that the United States has already provided Romania with specialized equipment for part of the 60-kilometre border: 'They have already given us some equipment for exactly this 60-kilometre stretch of border. So we have some American equipment, but only for part of the border, not for all of it,' he said.

When asked whether Romania could commit to increasing its NATO funding, amid pressure coming particularly from the U.S., Romanian President Nicusor Dan explained that, two weeks ago, at the B9 summit in Bucharest - which brought together the nine NATO eastern flank countries, with the Nordic countries also invited, and organized in preparation for the NATO summit in Ankara - it was agreed to continue increasing defense funding, to turn it into concrete capabilities, and, very importantly, to develop the military industry in each of those countries. AGERPRES/(AS - editing by: Mariana Ionescu)