2023-09-22 08:34:05
by Marta Serafini
In the villages facing the port of Izmail the sirens do not sound. The mayor: no one would hear them, they would be confused with those of the ships. And the alert messages are not arriving on the phones
FROM OUR REPORTER PLAURU
DANUBE DELTA, ON THE BORDER WITH UKRAINE – «When, in August, we warned the authorities that Russian drones were falling here, they treated us like crazy, they told us we were dreaming». Daniela Tanase, 46 years old, has lived on the Danube Delta, in the village of Plauru together with around forty other souls since she was a child. Just 250 meters from her house, the river. In the river, the border with Ukraine. With the war. On the opposite bank, the Ukrainian port of Izmail has been the target of raids for over a month now by Russian President Vladimir Putin who hopes to block grain ships and Ukrainian exports. «The first bombing was horrible. We woke up with a start and heard the drone of drones, as if it were the sound of a motorcycle but in the sky above our heads. I realized it couldn’t be anything other than a drone. It went well, only one window broke.”
It’s August 2nd. A few weeks and a few raids later, Ukrainian intelligence reports: fragments of Russian drones have fallen in Romania. Territory of the European Union. NATO territory, the same NATO which not far from Plauru has a base in the port of Constanta overlooking the Black Sea. But nothing is moving. While Daniela calls the mayor worried for the twentieth time, the Romanian president Klaus Iohannis declares: impossible, it cannot be. «We may be simple people but we know how to recognize danger», says Daniela. A few days later the version changes. And from Bucharest they order an investigation.
Just move a few meters into the Delta bush to see a crater of a few meters, surrounded by burnt trees. «That clearing where you were is the point where the drone fell, I found it». Mr. Ion Giovanovici, 73 years old, is making grappa from his vineyard. He willingly talks, he is happy that someone is listening to him. «It happened four minutes before two in the morning, I felt the house shaking and I went out quickly. I saw lights in the sky, I heard from the Izmail side that they were shooting at the drone, with cannons, very hard, so hard that they deflected it and the drone passed over our house. And then he flew further. After two seconds I saw a huge flame 50 meters high. After another 3 seconds a loud explosion noise.” Everything in detail and absolutely plausible. A piece of a Russian drone that Ukrainian anti-aircraft failed to shoot down fell in Romanian territory according to Mr. Giovanovici’s reconstruction.
What Mr. Giovanovici doesn’t know is that in the port of Izmail there are not only huge silos full of grain. But also fertilizer deposits which, if they were to explode, could break much more than Mrs. Daniela’s window. A security problem. Also because the sirens don’t sound in Plauru like in Izmail, on the Ukrainian side. «No one would hear her». Sitting in his office, the mayor of Plauru and 3 other villages Cernega Tudor, explains. «The inhabitants would confuse them with ship sirens. If I know there is danger, I ring the church bells but the government has ordered me to use an alert system with messages on my phone. The problem is that they don’t arrive because there isn’t a good mobile network here.” The reason? «Private companies have no interest in expanding the network here, because there are few inhabitants. So if a member of NATO and the European Union were attacked, probably no one would climb it for hours”, smiles the mayor dejectedly. The Bucharest government, after changing its version about the fall of the drones, sent a military contingent and navy vehicles to the region a few days ago to patrol the coasts. «We are ready to defend our territory by any means. And soon we will send 600 men”, thundered General Gheorhita Vlad, hinting that the use of anti-aircraft could also be possible”. In reality, according to a soldier we meet near a post and who speaks to us on condition of anonymity, things are a little different. “They sent us here mostly to reassure the population,” he explains with a smile when we ask him if he expects war at home.
A few meters away from the tents camouflaged in the vegetation there is a concrete shelter, to the side a wooden arrow with the words “children”. It is reminiscent of the one used by Ukrainian evacuees on cars to try to ward off Russian attacks. “I saw the shelters,” says Mr. Giovanovici after explaining to us that he has Ukrainian blood in his veins. Ion doesn’t have a smartphone and even if one of the alert messages were to arrive he wouldn’t receive it. For him, therefore, any form of protection from Russian drones appears useless, especially those two reinforced concrete buildings that have sprung up near his house. “I think they will be useful for putting livestock in this winter. Then if Putin wants to attack here too, go ahead. We will know how to respond to him.”
September 22, 2023 (modified September 22, 2023 | 08:33)
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