UN stresses the need for de-escalation in Ukraine war as attacks rise
Romania requested the urgent meeting after a Russian drone entered its airspace on Friday night, hitting an apartment building in the eastern city of Galaţi. Two residents – a woman and a child – were injured. “Last Friday, a dangerous incident crystallized our oft-stated warnings about potential spillover of the war,” said Kayoko Gotoh, a Director in the UN political and peace departments. She noted that although this was not the first reported breach of Romanian airspace by an armed drone since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, it was the first time such an incident resulted in casualties. ‘A worrying trend’ It also “came on the heels of a worrying trend of drone incursions into the airspaces and territorial waters of countries bordering either Ukraine or the Russian Federation,” she added. In the past 12 months, incidents have been reported by Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Finland, Poland, Kazakhstan, and Belarus, as well as three countries in the wider region: Bulgaria, Greece and Türkiye. “The Galaţi incident comes amidst a sharp escalation of large-scale missile and drone attacks by the armed forces of the Russian Federation on Ukrainian towns and cities, resulting in ever worsening toll of civilian casualties and destruction of civilian infrastructure,” she said. “There has also been a marked increase in Ukrainian attacks on military, energy and industrial infrastructure in the Russian Federation, which have reportedly resulted in a growing number of civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure.”
