Already a subscriber? Make sure to log into your account before viewing this content. You can access your account by hitting the “login” button on the top right corner. Still unable to see the content after signing in? Make sure your card on file is up-to-date.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said Wednesday that a drone nearly struck Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s plane as it took off from Moldova en route to Oslo for the funeral of King Harald V.

Getting into it: “His flight was almost hit by a drone when it was taking off from Moldova. That is the reality he lives in,” Støre told Norwegian broadcaster NRK. He gave no further detail on how close it came.

Moldova’s Defense Ministry said a Shahed-type drone entered the country’s airspace around 4:20 p.m. Tuesday and was tracked until it crossed into Romanian airspace roughly 17 minutes later. The incursion forced the closure of Moldovan airspace, triggered emergency alerts, and prompted NATO to scramble fighter jets. Chișinău International Airport halted all flights in and out, and planes headed there had to enter holding patterns or reroute.

A Moldovan government spokesperson later said two Russian drones were involved and that the incident delayed Zelensky’s departure. His plane was cleared to leave only after officials determined where one of the drones had come down: a field north of Chișinău, where it started a fire. The second drone continued into Romania. According to the Institute for the Study of War, one of the drones spent roughly an hour moving between Moldovan and Romanian airspace before coming down in Moldova.

Ukraine’s government downplayed the threat. A source in the Ukrainian presidency told AFP that it was an alert triggered by a Russian drone crossing into Moldova and Romania and called the idea that Zelensky was in danger “exaggerated.” Still, a separate source told the Kyiv Independent that the incursion’s timing lined up with Zelensky’s flight.

The close call follows a spike in drone activity over Moldova. Prime Minister Vasile Tofan said the country has logged more than 30 drone incursions so far this year, 17 of them in August. “Russia’s inhuman war against Ukraine is putting our citizens at growing risk,” he wrote. President Maia Sandu called the incursions a “serious threat to people’s lives” and condemned a Russian drone strike that killed two people at a crossing on the Moldova-Ukraine border.

She warned that Russia’s front keeps shifting westward, “which is why air defense for Ukraine is urgent.”