NATO Member Scrambles Jets As Russia Destroys Gas Facility Key To Imports From US, Azerbaijan

Russia carried out an overnight drone strike on a crucial gas pumping and metering facility in Ukraine, triggering a large fire at the site, Ukrainian officials reported Wednesday. Importantly the station is part of an LNG imports scheme from the US and Azerbaijan. According to Ukraine’s energy ministry, a wave of drones targeted a metering station located near the Romania-Ukraine border, identified as part of the Transbalkan pipeline system.

NATO member Romania scrambled fighter jets in response to the large attack right on its border, Fox News reports:

Romania was forced to scramble F-16 jets after Russia carried out a strike just half a mile from the NATO nation’s territory. The country’s Ministry of National Defense (MApN) confirmed in a post on X that Russia carried out a drone attack near its border.

“On the night of August 5-6, the Russian forces launched a massive drone attack on the civilian infrastructure in the Ismail area, Ukraine, in the vicinity of the border with Romania,” Romania’s defense ministry wrote in a post on X.

“The radar systems of the MApN detected air targets in Ukrainian space, close to Tulcea County. At 1:10a.m., the population in the north of the county was warned via RO-Alert,” the ministry added, in reference to Romania’s official emergency warning system.

According to more details via Fox:

The defense ministry stated that two F-16 fighter jets took off “to monitor the national airspace,” but no “unauthorized intrusions” were detected. The ministry said it would carry out checks in the area and keep NATO allies updated in real time.

The drones reportedly struck oil and gas pipelines at the Orlivka plant in Odesa, Ukraine. Bright orange flames and plumes of smoke were visible across the Danube River.

Russia’s defense ministry acknowledged the intentional attack on Ukraine’s gas infrastructure, coming amid a renewed exchange of attacks by both Russia and Ukraine on energy and transport sites generally. So after six months, even the so-called ‘energy ceasefire’ is clearly off.

Ukraine is busy making great efforts to stockpile gas ahead of what’s typically a brutally cold winter season. President Zelensky called it deliberate in terms of timing.

“This was a deliberate and utterly cynical attempt to disrupt our preparations for the heating season,” Zelensky said in a social media post on Wednesday.

The Transbalkan pipeline had during the Soviet era and after at one time transported Russian gas through Ukraine to several Balkan and Eastern European countries -  including Romania, Moldova, Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey. 

But Russia ceased using the route in late 2019 after the launch of the TurkStream pipeline beneath the Black Sea. Now the flow direction is being reversed to get gas from external countries into Ukraine.

According to Reuters’ reporting of the fresh attack:

Dozens of Russian drones attacked a gas pumping station in southern Ukraine, part of an LNG imports scheme from the U.S. and Azerbaijan, Ukraine’s energy ministry said on Wednesday.

The ministry described the strike on the station near the Ukraine-Romania border as directed “purely against civilian infrastructure” and targeting relations with Azerbaijan, the U.S. and European partners. 

The fire in Ukraine was visible even from Romania. Russian occupiers struck a gas facility in the Izmail district of Odesa region. Ukrainian media report that the strike completely destroyed the production equipment. Due to damage to the main gas pipeline, 2,500 customers have… pic.twitter.com/P8UrojCodm

— WarTranslated (@wartranslated) August 6, 2025

Social media video has emerged of a large fireball above the gas facility accompanied by sounds of loud anti-aircraft fire, right near the Danube river which forms the border between the two countries.

Currently, most of Ukraine’s vital gas imports are flowing in via the country’s interconnectors with Hungary, Slovakia and Poland.