Moldova and Ukraine say Zelensky’s flight from Chisinau was delayed due to a drone threat. Norway’s prime minister said the president’s plane ‘almost collided with a drone.’
Moldovan authorities clarified that the plane carrying Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was delayed on takeoff from Chisinau because of a drone threat, after Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said Zelensky’s plane “almost collided with a drone when it was about to take off from Moldova” on September 8.
Moldova’s government press service told the Reuters news agency that the country’s airspace had been closed after a drone appeared, delaying three outbound flights and four inbound flights.
The Telegram channel Moldova Liberă reported that authorities received a signal about a drone in the country’s airspace at 4:30 p.m. Shortly after 5:20 p.m., the drone exploded near the village of Stari Mihaileni in Rîșcani District, about 160 kilometers (about 100 miles) from Chisinau’s airport. The restrictions were then lifted, and Zelensky’s plane took off.
A source in Ukraine’s presidential office, however, told the AFP news agency that the Norwegian prime minister’s claim that Zelensky’s plane had almost collided with a drone was “exaggerated.”
Vladislav Kulminski, Moldova’s ambassador to the United States, told CNN that he believed the drone’s appearance in the country’s airspace on September 8 was “not an accident.” “We do not believe in jet propelled drones just flying into Moldova’s territory for surveillance purposes while [the] Ukrainian president’s airplane is on the ground at the airport,” Kulminski told CNN.
Moldova’s police announced that experts who examined the drone’s crash site determined it was a variant of Russia’s “Geran” drone. Russian authorities have not commented on the incident.
Volodymyr Zelensky stopped in Chisinau on his way to Oslo, where he attended the funeral of Norway’s king, then continued on to Canada.
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