A plane carrying Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Norway for the king’s state funeral was “almost hit” by a drone while preparing to depart Moldova on Tuesday, Reuters reported.
Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre disclosed the incident Wednesday in comments to public broadcaster NRK, according to the outlet. Zelenskyy’s aircraft landed safely in Oslo on Tuesday evening.
“His plane was almost hit by a drone as it was about to take off from Moldova. That is the reality he is facing,” Støre said. He did not say how near the drone came to the Ukrainian president’s aircraft.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy gestures during his meeting with Britain’s prime minister on the sideline of the G7 summit in Evian, eastern France, June 16, 2026. (Isabel Infantes Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
Later Wednesday, a Moldovan government spokesperson said the episode involved two Russian drones. Zelenskyy’s flight to Oslo was delayed after officials closed Moldova’s airspace in response.
His aircraft was then cleared for takeoff once officials determined that one Russian drone had landed on Moldovan territory, a spokesperson told Reuters.
This photograph taken Jan. 5, 2026, shows a partial view of the village of Cuhurestii de Jos, Northern Moldova, close to the Ukrainian border. (Daniel Mihailescu/AFP via Getty Images)
One landed in a field north of the capital, sparking a fire, while the other continued into Romanian airspace.
The incursions forced Chișinău International Airport to temporarily suspend arrivals and departures Tuesday, sending incoming flights into holding patterns or diverting them to neighboring countries, according to tracking data.
Moldova’s President Maia Sandu and Russian President Vladimir Putin (Horacio Villalobos Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images; Contributor/Getty Images)
Moldovan President Maia Sandu denounced the incursions as a “serious threat to people’s lives” and separately condemned a Russian drone strike on a border crossing with Ukraine that killed two people.
Zelenskyy arrived in Oslo Tuesday evening, where he discussed military aid, including air defense support and civilian assistance with Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide and Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg, according to Deutsche Welle.
The Institute for the Study of War also said a Russian Shahed drone flew through Moldovan and Romanian airspace for about an hour Tuesday before crashing in Moldova.