CROCMAZ, Moldova -- The watchman was napping in a small hut overlooking a vineyard along Moldova's southeastern border when the afternoon exploded, the earth erupted, and the windows of the outbuilding blew out.
The man, who declined to be interviewed, and others in the district flooded local emergency numbers, asking police what was going on.
Ion Tabac, an officer with the district border patrol, was one of the responders to the incident on the afternoon of August 9.
"We found the trees scorched and destroyed. Smoke was still rising," Tabac told RFE/RL's Moldovan Service.
"When the war started in 2022, they weren't flying overhead like this, but lately it happens all the time," he said.
Russian drones and missiles zipping through Moldovan airspace is not a new phenomenon for Chisinau. It is, however, something occurring with alarming frequency over the past several months.
Moreover, Moldovan authorities say they're tracking a growing number of aerial weapons that are crashing and exploding on Moldovan territory itself.
Earlier this week, a border guard was injured when a Russia projectile -- authorities did not say what the object was -- hit the ground near the Palanca crossing along the border with Ukraine and ricocheted.
It was the first time a Moldovan law enforcement officer had been injured by a Russian weapon.
Russian drones and missiles like this one have flown through Moldovan airspace since the first year of the Russian war on Ukraine.
In Crocmaz, what made the crash there even more alarming, officials said, was that the projectile was a new hybrid cruise missile drone called an S-8000 Banderol
Despite the uptick in incidents, most Moldovans remain largely apathetic, said Andrei Curararu, a Moldovan political expert.
"You can really see splashes of public reaction and fury when something bigger happens. But up to this point, it has been mostly drones exploding in open spaces or with lesser damage. So many people have grown to live with it," said Curararu, who co-founded the Chisinau think tank WatchDog.MD.
"It's apathy linked to the fact that it happens. We do not have the capacity to react to it quite concretely," he said.
Caught In The Cross Fire
Wedged between Romania -- its linguistic and cultural cousin and NATO member -- to the west and war-ravaged Ukraine to the east, Moldova has struggled since the onset of the all-out Russian invasion to minimize the fallout.
Since 2022, Russian drones and missile have routinely crossed Moldova airspace en route to Ukrainian targets, usually launched from Black Sea naval ships and installation on the occupied Crimea peninsula.
But the increased frequency of both overflights and impacts within Moldova itself has rattled authorities who worry about the possibility of injuries or deaths from Russian weapons.
The Defense Ministry says it has recorded nearly 90 "unauthorized incursions" into Moldova airspace, including both drones and missiles.
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Another Russian Drone Crashed In Northern Moldova
More than half, 48 in total, crashed onto Moldovan soil. The tally included decoys, various loitering strike drones, and missile fragments brought down by Ukrainian air defenses operating close to the border.
In August alone, officials recorded 17 incidents where Russian drones crashed or exploded in Moldovan territory, eclipsing the total recorded number for all of 2025.
On September 9, a Russian drone hit a crossing along the Moldovan-Ukraine border near Odesa, damaging the border post, sparking a fire, and forcing the evacuation of 16 people.
President Maia Sandu wrote in a social media post afterward that Russia's front line is moving further west.
A day earlier, a Russian drone over Moldovan airspace prompted authorities to halt flights, including that of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was flying from Moldova to Norway.
"Moscow is putting lives at risk across Europe and must be stopped," she wrote in a post on October 3 after another incident in which she said Banderol missiles and drones "violated our airspace and exploded on our soil."
SEE ALSO:
Russian Drone Attack Kills 2 Near Moldova As Norway Says Zelenskyy's Plane Nearly StruckWhile most of the crashes have taken place in rural or unpopulated regions like Crocmaz, several drones have detonated on the outskirts of the capital, Chisinau, rattling sleeping residents.
Moldovan authorities are largely helpless against the Russian weapons. The country has two relatively new radar systems, one bought from France and the other donated by the EU, that can detect drones or missiles.
Moldova also has some short-range air defenses: mainly so-called MANPADS, shoulder-launched missiles. But it does not have medium- or long-range interception systems capable of shooting down a Russian drone over Ukrainian air space or the Black Sea.
"The core problem here is that Moldova doesn't have an effective air defense," Curararu said. "We are in a long line for buying some medium-range defense equipment, but now everything is booked for years and years, and most of it goes to Ukraine."
A scorched tree partially damaged by the Russian drone that crashed and exploded near Crocmaz in early August
In July, the European Union, of which Moldova is a candidate country, committed 120 million euros toward a medium-range air-defense system for Moldova. But experts say that will take time to acquire and deploy, likely meaning it won't help during the current Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Speaking to reporters on September 21, Sandu said the limited air defenses the Moldovan military has at its disposal are deployed to protect critical infrastructure such as the electricity and power grid.
"Moldova itself will never do anything as suicidal as going to war with Russia or anything else," Curararu said. "We understand that Moldova is too small to be a factor in this war, anyway. So it could be a collateral victim more than an actor."