"Putin sends us a drone that flies for 49 minutes in Romanian airspace. We raise F16 aircraft and towards the end of the mission, two other German Eurofighters come to replace us and lo and behold, for a drone that had to be shot down in the first minutes after it entered Romanian airspace because it was recognized as a drone. The fact that we justify ourselves... see collateral risks... The biggest risk in the whole Russian drone business is the discrediting of the country's defense capacity. Or the fact that we did not shoot down this drone that was sent to us to test us only calls into question both for the allies and for the Russians, but especially for the Romanian population, so it calls into question the capacity of the Romanian Army to eliminate such risks. I'm sorry to say it, but if I remember correctly, beyond the cumbersome F-16s, Romania has some combat vehicles"Gepards that each have two Orlikon anti-aircraft guns and that were received from Germany. I'm not saying that we have large units with Gepard combat vehicles, but we are on the way to a division of Gepard combat vehicles that, at least two or three of them, could be placed in the northern area of Tulcea County where Russian drones have entered," Traian Băsescu tells Digi24.

The former president states that"the drone should have been shot down."

"It was a mistake that Russia was not shown that the drone could be hit," adds Traian Băsescu.

He believes that, in such cases, the decision is not left to the pilot and ironizes the authorities' communication.

"The army has formed a kind of union and says something like this: It would be better to take it down. But if you think it is not good to take it down, let's not take the drone down.... What would such a conversation sound like in the army? In the army, the order is precise. Enter unauthorized airspace, shoot it down. (…) I was trained in a pyramidal structure in which there are no options for the subordinate. He has a mission to fulfill: shoot down the object that enters unauthorized space. You cannot give a pilot an order: Shoot it down, but look, if it seems to you that it is not the case, do not shoot it down. (…) Relative orders cannot be given in the army. That is out of the question. Out of the question", concludes Băsescu.