INTERVIEW. The Army spokesman raged: “There's a lot of frustration among the military as well. We've come to condemn our own Army, but not Russia?”

The spokesman of MapN, colonel Cristian Popovici, explained in a dialogue with HotNews what the real possibilities of our armed forces are and how difficult it is for any country in the world to take down drones. The military stormed in a dialogue with HotNews.

A Russian Geran-2 drone crashed, on the night of Thursday to Friday, on a ten-story building in Galati. The impact was followed by an explosion and a fire, as a result of which a woman and a 14-year-old child were injured.

Colonel Cristian Popovici says that Romania can detect and track Russian drones, but does not have the necessary military technology to hit them, regardless of the situation.

HotNews asked Colonel Cristian Popovici what Romania can do if another drone enters the Romanian airspace in the Galaţi area, why it cannot simply be shot from the ground and how vulnerable the city remains until the arrival of the new anti-aircraft systems.

Colonel Cristian Popovici was in Galati on Friday morning, starting at 7:00 a.m., to see the situation on the ground. His explanations also come from direct professional experience: Popovici is an artillery and anti-aircraft missile officer.

“We have a limited kinetic capacity, but we are not discovered”

HotNews: President Nicusor Dan announced that “within SAFE, we have an important component dedicated to anti-aircraft capabilities. The contracts are being signed these days and we will have the delivery in a year or two.” Romania has the ability to identify drones, but so far it has not shot them down. On Thursday, F16 jets were raised, but the drone arrived at the block in just five minutes. What solution exists in case of another incident of this type in the Galati area?
Cristian Popovici: The scenarios are different from one day to the next. We have a limited kinetic capacity there, but we are not discovered. And every day we work with partners, borrow technologies, look for solutions. But consider that the USA does not have these solutions either – they asked for them from the Ukrainians. NATO does not have a single, invincible solution.

There is no solution that guarantees that if that damn drone comes, you can take it down immediately. It is very small, it has a variable flight profile, the relief in the Galaţi area is specific – in the Brateșul lake area, the town is on a high hill ridge, 70-80 meters above the Reni port, from which direction the drones are coming. There are challenges in the area, but we are adapting.

– But Thursday night's drone could be seen and tracked as soon as it entered the airspace. In such situations, can you not shoot from the ground? Please explain it to us simply.
– You cannot shoot with the 2x30mm cannon. You can't make barrage fire, like Saddam Hussein (allusion to Iraqi air defenses during the Iraq War, when the Saddam Hussein regime fired massively, but often inaccurately, at American planes and missiles, no).

I am an artillery and anti-aircraft missile officer. There is also the barrage method – when you know the device is coming from a certain direction.

But that means shooting a huge amount of ammo with lots of tracers. It's not the best tactic for many reasons, including the effect on the population, the direction of the tracers…

– OK, and then what can we do?
– We are not in danger, but we are close to the door. There is a lot of frustration among the military as well. But we will find solutions.

It seems to me a suggestive analogy: in the First World War, when the company machine gun appeared, no one came out of the trenches for two years. He simply couldn't move forward. From 1916 to 1934, it was a gap technologically, in which no one knew how to fight against the company machine gun. Only in the Second World War did the military come out of the trenches, after the airplane and the tank were invented. I think we are in a similar period. Military technologies have not yet appeared.

Another example: Romania has been talking to NATO about the Black Sea for over 20 years, but the northern flank is much more defended. Well, in Lithuania, drones fell on two oil depots. They have nothing to do with them either!

– And this military and technological impasse brings a risk…
– The risk is Russia! In the conditions in which we did not provoke Russia in any way! Many turn to the military and ask how such a thing is possible. The question is how is it possible that Russia could have allowed itself to do this completely unjustifiably?

How does Russia allow itself to be so careless and so ill-equipped yet to let a drone fly into Romania's territory?

It outrages me that so few people look at the real cause of the problem. The Romanian Army is condemned, but Russia is not condemned. Have we come to condemn our own Army, but not Russia?

“It wasn't made specifically for drones”

“Our weaponry today was not created specifically for drones, and we did not purchase it for that,” said the same officer on the Romania Live show on Europa FM. The Chiron portable systems, the Cheetah systems – originally designed for attack helicopters – have difficulties in front of small and slow aerial targets. He also said that Romania would buy, through the SAFE program, more suitable anti-aircraft systems, such as Skyranger and Skynet, produced by German industry.