Romania-Russia Diplomatic Fallout Continues; NATO Allies Weigh Article 4 Response
Romania’s expulsion of the Russian consul general and closure of the Russian consulate in Constanța on Friday — in response to the Russian Geran-2 attack drone strike on a Galați apartment block overnight Thursday — remains the central diplomatic story across NATO capitals into Saturday morning. President Nicușor Dan announced the decisions after a meeting of the National Security Council. Bucharest is weighing formal Article 4 consultation with NATO allies, which would be only the eighth invocation in the alliance’s history. The NATO Secretary General condemned “Russia’s recklessness”; Berlin called it a “serious and irresponsible escalation”.
Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty allows a member to call for consultation when its “territorial integrity, political independence or security” is threatened. Previous invocations: Turkey four times (2003, 2012, 2015, 2020), Poland and the Baltic states twice jointly (March 2014 Crimea annexation; February 2022 Ukraine invasion). The Russian Foreign Ministry has not commented on the consulate expulsion. The Russian Geran-2 attack drone is the Iranian Shahed-136 design produced under licence at the Yelabuga facility in Tatarstan. Russia has produced these drones at a rate of around 5,000 per month through 2026. The Polish and Latvian precedents for NATO response to Russian drone incursions stopped short of consular expulsion; Romania has now established a new escalation tier.