Zelenskyy’s plane did not share airspace with Russian drone in Moldova

Ukrainian tracking units monitored the inbound drone and waited until it disappeared from radar screens before Zelenskyy's aircraft was cleared to depart for Oslo, the outlet clarified, citing sources within the Presidential Office.

Two Russian drones were active in Moldovan airspace when the presidential flight was initially scheduled for takeoff. However, Zelenskyy’s plane remained grounded on the tarmac. Flight telemetry from tracking service AirNavRadar independently corroborates this sequence.

Sources revealed that Ukraine offered to scramble an F-16 fighter jet to intercept and shoot down the UAV, but "it did not come to that." At 4:20 p.m., one of the drones crossed the Ukrainian-Moldovan border from Odesa Oblast, heading into Moldovan territory. Eighteen minutes later, at 4:38 p.m., it penetrated roughly 70 kilometers into Romanian airspace before re-entering Moldovan airspace around 5:04 p.m.

Contact with the drone was lost at 5:15 p.m. near the village of Sturzeni, with sources suggesting the munition likely crashed. The flight trajectory of the second drone was not tracked. According to AirNavRadar data, Zelenskyy’s aircraft crossed out of Moldovan airspace at 5:30 p.m., well after the incident concluded.

On Sept. 9, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre remarked that Zelenskyy’s plane was "almost shot down" by a drone while taking off from Moldova. Zelenskyy traveled to Norway to attend the funeral of King Harald V and conduct bilateral talks with Støre, meeting with him twice within a 24-hour span on Sept. 8 and 9.

In Russia’s mass aerial assault on Ukraine on Sept. 8, the Russian drone crossed through Moldova and Romania before crashing in an open field near the Moldovan village of Mihăilenii Vechi. The airborne security breach prompted Romanian aviation officials to temporarily suspend operations at Iași International Airport.