Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky According to the Norwegian Prime Minister, the business jet was threatened by a drone as he prepared to fly from Moldova to Oslo.
“His plane was almost hit by a drone when it took off in Moldova. That is his reality,” Jonas Gahr Støre told local broadcaster NRK on Wednesday.
Støre did not provide any further details about the incident. He also did not mention the distance between the drone and Zelenskyy’s plane.
The Ukrainian president flew from Moldova on Tuesday evening to attend the meeting King Harald of Norway funeral, before flying to Ottawa to meet with Canadian leaders.
Moldovan authorities said a drone entered their country’s airspace via the Ukrainian border on Tuesday, adding that preliminary data showed the unmanned aerial vehicle was a Shahed. Russia’s main attack drone. This Shahed entered Moldova twice in the late afternoon, officials said, temporarily closing the country’s airspace.
The time of the Shahed’s entry, around 4:20 p.m., corresponds to the time Zelensky is said to have prepared to fly to Oslo.
The Kremlin can launch hundreds of Shaheds and decoy drones into Ukraine in a single day, some of which have been documented wandering into nearby countries such as Poland and Romania.
NATO has accused Russia of deliberately sending the drones to Eastern Europe to test its response to such potential threats. Moscow denies having any such plans.
The Moldovan government told Reuters on Wednesday that Zelenskyy’s plane was cleared to take off after the drones left the airspace.
The Ukrainian president’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent by Business Insider outside regular business hours.
A separate public statement from officials said the Shahed drone had also initially flown to Romania before returning to Moldovan airspace. It eventually crashed in the northwestern Glodeni district.
No casualties were reported, although the crash caused a fire, officials said.
