Russian Drone Strike Kills Two at Ukraine-Moldova Crossing, Moldova Rejects Kremlin's Weapons Claim as False

Since Russian drones began violating Moldovan airspace after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the incursions have escalated sharply, hitting 17 in August alone, the highest monthly total of the war, according to Moldova's national security advisor Stanislav Secrieru. That surge culminated overnight on September 9 in a drone strike that killed two civilians and injured three at the Starokozache-Tudora border crossing between Ukraine and Moldova, according to Odesa regional governor Oleg Kiper and Ukraine's State Border Guard Service.

The strike destroyed a bus, trucks and private vehicles, sparked a major fire, and forced the evacuation of 16 people, per the Border Guard Service. The crossing was closed afterward, and a Moldovan citizen was also injured, according to Moldova's foreign ministry.

Moldova calls Russia's justification false

Russia's defense ministry said it had struck logistics facilities at the crossing used to move military cargo into Ukraine, according to the Kyiv Post. Moldova's foreign ministry flatly rejected that claim.

"No weapons are transported to Ukraine through the territory of the Republic of Moldova," the ministry said, adding that the crossing and all other Moldovan checkpoints are used by civilians, including families, children and the elderly.

Moldova's ministry accused the Kremlin of using disinformation to justify civilian deaths. Russia's Defense Ministry has not, as of this writing, responded publicly to that specific accusation, and no independent investigation into the strike's target has been announced by any international body.

President Maia Sandu tied the attack to the broader war. "Russia's front line is moving further west, which is why air defense for Ukraine is urgent," she wrote on X. Prime Minister Dorin Recean said the crossing's closure and the mounting drone activity show Russia's war "is increasingly endangering the lives of our citizens as well."

Why the crossing matters

Secrieru told Fox News Digital the corridor is a lifeline for Ukraine's economy. With Ukrainian grain exports through Black Sea ports under sustained attack, Moldova has become a transit route for grain heading to Romania's ports, and the Moldovan government cut rail transit tariffs in half to keep that traffic moving, he said.

"Russia's strikes are meant to sever them," Secrieru said of the export routes, adding that Russia has also stepped up airspace violations "to intimidate us into withdrawing our support." Moldova, he said, "stays the course."

Moldova's government assessment is that Russian strikes are meant to sever export routes and intimidate the country into withdrawing support. Russia has offered a different justification, the alleged weapons-transit claim Moldova disputes.

The Zelensky plane dispute

The border strike came a day after a Russian drone entered Moldovan airspace, prompting a temporary halt to flights and delaying Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's departure following an official visit to Moldova, according to OilPrice.com. Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store said afterward that Zelenskyy's plane had been "almost hit by a drone" on departure.

A Ukrainian presidential source pushed back on that characterization, describing it as "exaggerated." Moldovan authorities confirmed only that they had temporarily closed the country's airspace after detecting a Russian drone, delaying several flights, including Zelenskyy's, before restrictions were lifted and his plane departed. Neither account has been reconciled publicly, and exactly how close the drone came to the aircraft remains unclear.

Ukraine's retaliatory strike

Ukraine struck back at Russia's Black Sea port of Novorossiysk overnight on September 9, hitting a naval base, an oil-loading terminal, and warships carrying Kalibr missiles, President Zelenskyy said. Russian officials confirmed the strike killed four people, including a child, according to Krasnodar region Governor Veniamin Kondratyev.

Separately, Russia's Defense Ministry described a broader wave of strikes overnight into Thursday, calling it a "massive" attack on nine Ukrainian cities that it said targeted oil refineries, logistics hubs and port infrastructure, according to Breitbart's reporting of an Associated Press dispatch. Ukrainian officials said the barrage killed a 78-year-old woman in Zaporizhzhia and wounded at least nine others elsewhere, with residential blocks, a school and a medical facility also damaged in four Kyiv districts, though no casualties were reported there.

Zelenskyy renewed his call for more Western air defense, saying Ukraine needs "additional ballistic missile defense packages" through European purchases of U.S. weapons, citing pledges made by European governments earlier in the week.

Moldova's Ministry of Defense confirmed five drones breached its airspace overnight around the same period but did not specify who fired them, a distinction that matters given Russia has not claimed responsibility for every incursion. With the Starokozache-Tudora crossing still closed and grain shipments rerouted through Romania at risk, the practical question for Kyiv and Chișinău is whether Western governments deliver the additional air-defense systems Zelenskyy and Sandu are both now publicly demanding, or whether the crossing stays shut and the corridor stays under threat.