The Balkan has received eyewitness reports from trusted sources that a missile exploded today over the skies of Romania near a military base outside of Cluj-Napoca in the northwestern part of the country. The explosion shook buildings in nearby Florești. Eyewitnesses report that the missile came from the northwest, in the direction of Poland. No damage has been reported and Romania officially denies any incident took place, but something is clearly amiss.
Earlier today, Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, commander-in-chief of Ukraine's armed forces, told Ukrainian Pravda that “Two Russian Kalibr cruise missiles crossed the state border of Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova on 10 February at 10:18. At approximately 10:33, these missiles crossed into Romanian air space. After this, the said air targets re-entered Ukrainian airspace where the borders of the three states meet. At the moment, this target is being monitored, and measures to shoot it down are also being taken. The missile was launched from the Black Sea.”
Volodymir Zelensky then claimed that the rockets represented, “a provocation for NATO and its collective security.” Ukrainian officials added that they had the ability to shoot down the missiles but did not do so because they did not want to endanger civilians in the neighboring countries.
Kiev was clearly engaged in a disinformation campaign to try to prop up fading support for the Zelensky regime. The Ukrainian claims, however, were quickly debunked. “At this moment, we have no indications of a military threat by Russia against Romania or the Republic of Moldova.” Vedant Patel, a U.S. State Department Spokesman.
An official statement from the Romanian Ministry of Defense declared: “The aerial surveillance system of the Romanian Air Force detected on Friday, February 10, an aerial target launched from the Black Sea from a ship of the Russian Federation, near the Crimean Peninsula, most likely a cruise missile, which evolved in the airspace of Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova and re-entered the Ukrainian airspace without intersecting, at any time, the airspace of Romania. The closest point of the target's trajectory to Romania's airspace was recorded by radar systems approximately 35 kilometers North-East of the border.” The Defense Ministry made no mention of the incident over the skies of Transylvania.
So what can we make of the reported missile explosion over the skies near Cluj-Napoca? Clearly, no Russian missile was involved. If it had been, Romanian and NATO authorities would have raised the alarm and used the incident to strengthen support for Kiev. The missile that exploded over Transylvania was reported to have come from the northwest in the direction of Poland. Are Ukrainian troops there being trained in the use of long-range missiles and was this some sort of training exercise, error, or a deliberate action by the Ukrainian regime to blame Russia for an incident that could be used for propaganda purposes? We do not have the answers, but the refusal of the authorities to even acknowledge the incident speaks volumes.
