BUCHAREST (Reuters) -Romania aims to partner Ukraine to build drones under a new European Union defence funding mechanism, but it will be at least seven years before the country has a multi-layered air
defence system, a government source said.
The EU and NATO state shares a 650 km (400 miles) land border with Ukraine and has had drones breach its airspace and fragments fall onto its territory more than 20 times over the last two years, since Russia began attacking Kyiv's ports across the Danube from Romania.
Tensions have mounted along Europe's eastern flank, where Estonia has accused Moscow of sending three fighter jets into its airspace and Denmark has closed airports due to suspected drones a week after NATO jets shot down Russian drones in Polish airspace. Romania also came close to shooting down a drone.
"We need more air defences, nobody has them," a Romanian government defence source told Reuters.
"Until then, defence will be asymmetrical with huge anti-aircraft costs which could only be covered on a NATO level."
The source says Romania was in talks with Ukraine, whose drone technology has been "battle tested at large scale" to produce drones in a project to be funded via the EU's "SAFE" rearmament initiative.
Romania will have 16.6 billion euros ($19.4 billion) available under SAFE, which Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan said would ensure military acquisitions worth around 1% of output annually for five years.
Romanian air defences currently include F-16 fighter jets, Patriot systems, Lockheed Martin's HIMARS rocket launchers, short-range South Korean surface-to-air Chiron missiles and German anti-aircraft Gepard guns.
The latter two were Romania's most cost-effective option for drone defence at the moment, the source said.
Gepards are placed near populated areas close to the Ukrainian border, but the cost of covering the entire border and manning them would be prohibitive.
($1 = 0.8564 euros)
(Reporting by Luiza Ilie; Editing by Alex Richardson)
