Romania says a Russian drone has breached its airspace – the second Nato country to report such an incursion.

Romanian fighter jets were in the air monitoring a Russian attack in Ukraine on Saturday and were able to track the drone near Ukraine’s southern border, the defence ministry said in a statement.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the incursion could not be a mistake – it was “an obvious expansion of the war by Russia”. Moscow has not commented on the Romanian claims.

On Wednesday, Poland said it had shot down at least three Russian drones which had entered its airspace.

In its statement, Romania’s defence ministry said it detected the Russian drone when two F-16 jets were monitoring they country’s border with Ukraine, after “Russian air attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure on the Danube”.

The drone was detected 20km (12.4 miles) south-west of the village of Chilia Veche, before disappearing from the radar.

But it did not fly over populated areas or pose imminent danger, the ministry said.

Poland also responded to concerns over Russian drones on Saturday.

“Preventative operations of aviation – Polish and allied – have begun in our airspace,” Prime Minister Donald Tusk said in a post on X.

“Ground-based air defence systems have reached the highest state of readiness.”

Earlier this week Russia’s defence ministry said there had been “no plans” to target facilities on Polish soil.

Belarus, a close Russian ally, said the drones which entered Polish airspace on Wednesday were an accident, after their navigation systems were jammed.

On Sunday, the Czech Republic announced it had sent a special operations helicopter unit to Poland.

The unit consists of three Mi-171S helicopters, each one capable of transporting up to 24 personnel and featuring full combat equipment.

The move is in response to Russian’s incursion into Nato’s eastern flank, the Czech Defence Minister Jana Cernochova said.

In response to the latest drone incursion, President Zelensky said the Russian military “knows exactly where their drones are headed and how long they can operate in the air”.

He has consistently asked Western countries to tighten sanctions on Moscow.

US President Donald Trump also weighed in on airspace breach earlier this week, saying he was “ready” to impose tougher sanctions on Russia, but only if Nato countries met certain conditions, such as stopping buying Russian oil.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and has been making slow progress in the battlefield.

Trump has been leading efforts to end the war, but Russia has intensified attacks on Ukraine since President Vladimir Putin returned from a summit with Trump in Alaska last month.

Paris ( Imran Y. CHOUDHRY):- French President Macron late Tuesday appointed Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu as France’s new prime minister, the country’s fourth in about a year.

Lecornu, 39, is the youngest defence minister in French history and architect of a major military buildup through 2030, spurred by Russia’s war in Ukraine.

A former conservative who joined Macron’s centrist movement in 2017, he has held posts on local authorities, overseas territories and during Macron’s yellow vest “great debate”, where he managed mass anger with dialogue. He also offered talks on autonomy during unrest in Guadeloupe in 2021.

His rise reflects Macron’s instinct to reward loyalty, but also the need for continuity as repeated budget showdowns have toppled his predecessors and left France in drift.

There were celebrations across France after Prime Minister François Bayrou lost a vote of confidence in the National Assembly on Monday. MPs ousted Bayrou by 364 votes to 194 over his austerity budget, which aimed to cut €44 billion to reduce the country’s national debt. ‘Farewell drinks’ for the prime minister were held in several cities, with many happy to see the back of a prime minister widely seen as having little popular mandate. However, there was concern in other quarters over France’s growing political instability.

Paris (Imran Y. CHOUDHRY) :- Former Press Secretary to the President, Former Press Minister to the Embassy of Pakistan to France, Former MD, SRBC Mr. Qamar Bashir analysis : Ukraine entered this war as the presumed underdog—smaller economy, fewer troops, and seemingly overmatched by a nuclear-armed Russia. Early expectations of a quick collapse proved wrong because two big forces collided: Ukraine’s own adaptation and resolve, and Europe’s decision that defending Kyiv was, in practice, defending Europe. That political will translated into money, weapons, training, and intelligence support on a scale and with a speed that Moscow did not anticipate. The result is a grinding third year in which Russia has advanced in places but still not broken Ukraine’s state, army, or economy—and in which the very character of warfare has been rewritten by drones, long-range precision strikes, and an unprecedented air-defence duel.
On the battlefield, the single biggest operational surprise has been the drone revolution. Ukraine industrialized “good-enough” unmanned systems—cheap FPV strike drones, long-range one-way attack drones, and uncrewed surface vessels (USVs)—to impose constant pressure on Russian logistics, airbases, and the Black Sea Fleet. Those naval drones forced Russia to pull major combatants away from Sevastopol toward safer ports, degrading its ability to blockade Ukraine’s coast and contributing to a remarkable Ukrainian asymmetric sea campaign.
Long-range strike has been the other pillar. The United States transferred ATACMS with 300-kilometre range in 2024, giving Ukraine new options against high-value targets deep behind the lines. That capability, combined with European Storm Shadow/SCALP and Ukrainian-built long-range drones, underpins the campaign hitting Russian oil infrastructure. Through August 2025, independent tallies indicate those drone strikes have taken roughly 10–17% of Russia’s refining capacity offline at various points—an effect visible at the pump and in emergency policy responses inside Russia.
If this is the war of drones and strikes, it is also the war of air defence. Ukraine’s layered network—Patriot, NASAMS, IRIS-T and others—has rewritten assumptions about what modern integrated air defences can do under fire, including the first confirmed shoot-downs of Russia’s Kinzhal air-launched ballistic missile. At the same time, Russia adapted with massed Shahed-type drones and heavy use of ballistic and cruise missiles to saturate interceptors, paired with powerful electronic warfare to degrade guidance and communications. The duel continues to evolve: intercept successes are real, but saturation and glide-bomb tactics have bitten hard.
The Black Sea is where Ukraine’s innovation most visibly paid off. By turning USVs into precision kamikaze boats and pairing them with intelligence from partners, Kyiv chipped away at ships, piers, and command nodes, compelling the Black Sea Fleet to redistribute to less exposed ports and reducing its freedom to threaten Ukraine’s coastline and grain lanes. That maritime asymmetry—inflicted by a country with almost no surviving navy—has strategic consequences disproportionate to cost.
Why, then, has Russia—despite numbers, artillery, and nuclear weapons—failed to secure a decisive victory? First, it misjudged the political spine of its opponents. Europe decided early that Ukraine’s survival was a core European interest, and it has put its money where its mouth is. The EU’s multi-year Ukraine Facility, worth up to €50 billion through 2027, created predictable budget support, while total EU-level and member-state assistance across financial, military, and humanitarian lines has reached roughly €150 billion. That predictable lifeline kept the Ukrainian state functioning and the army supplied even when battlefield fortunes wavered.
Second, Moscow underestimated what U.S. and European intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR)—including commercial space—would do to Russian command posts, ammo dumps, and air defences. Western ISR didn’t fight the war, but it made Ukrainian strikes smarter and faster and helped compensate for smaller forces.
Third, Russia’s logistics and corruption problems, while not new, were brutally exposed by the scale and tempo of this campaign. Under strain, the Russian system struggled to keep front-line formations fully equipped with trained infantry, modern optics, and precision munitions, and to sustain coherent combined-arms manoeuvre after the war’s first months.
Fourth, Ukrainian denial of the air domain—without actually achieving air superiority—has been unexpectedly effective. Air defences blunted Russia’s ability to use its fast jets in depth, and since mid-2024 the arrival of Western-donated F-16s has begun to stiffen Ukraine’s air posture and air-defence suppression capability, albeit in limited numbers so far.
Fifth, Russia’s war economy, though resilient, is feeling real pressure. The refinery-strike campaign has fed domestic fuel shortages and rationing in some regions, forcing ad-hoc controls and export bans. Lower oil and gas revenues this summer further squeezed the budget alongside very high nominal interest rates. Sustained pressure here does not guarantee battlefield collapse, but it narrows Moscow’s menu of options.
None of this means Ukraine has had it easy. Russia has adapted, too. It mass-produced glide-bomb kits (UMPK) to lob heavy bombs from beyond Ukraine’s front-line air-defence umbrellas, pulverizing defensive positions and urban strongpoints. It scaled up Shahed-type drones and improved missile salvos to exhaust intercept stocks, and it is iterating on EW to blunt Ukrainian drones. The result is a seesaw of adaptation in which each side’s marginal gains are contested within months.
Leadership and diplomacy sit over all of this. President Trump has sought to test diplomatic openings with Moscow, but as of mid-August a high-profile meeting produced no deal, and fighting has intensified since. Washington continues to weigh sanctions, export-control tightening, and security guarantees alongside European leaders; in parallel, Europeans insist they must be at the table for any settlement they will be asked to underwrite.
This war, unfolding in the heart of Europe, should never have happened in an age where humanity prides itself on knowledge, civility, and progress. Europe, with its centuries of cultural achievement, scientific discovery, and lessons from devastating past wars, was expected to have built a framework strong enough to prevent such catastrophe. Yet the conflict continues into its third year, threatening not just Ukraine and Russia but also global security, economic stability, and human dignity.
Finally, the lesson of this war must transform global thinking: that military might alone cannot deliver lasting security. Sustainable peace depends on economic interdependence, technological cooperation, and mutual respect for sovereignty. The same technologies—AI, robotics, cyber systems, and satellites—that now make this war deadlier could, if directed differently, make peace stronger and more enduring.
Humanity, after centuries of struggle, innovation, and shared civilization, owes itself a better path forward. Europe, the cradle of modern democracy and human rights, must lead—not with weapons alone but with wisdom, reconciliation, and courage. If the war’s architects fail to act, history will remember this as a failure not of power but of imagination. Yet if they succeed, Ukraine’s resilience, Europe’s unity, and the world’s collective resolve could together turn a battlefield tragedy into a foundation for a safer, more cooperative, and more humane international order.