Something about this story does not sit right with me.
According to reports, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s plane was nearly hit by a drone while departing Chișinău International Airport in Moldova on September 8, 2026. Zelenskyy was traveling to Oslo to attend the funeral of Norway’s King Harald V.
That alone would be a serious security incident. But the timing makes the story even more intriguing.
Just three days earlier, on September 5, President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow for more than three hours as part of renewed efforts to negotiate an end to the Russia-Ukraine war. The White House said the discussions involved substantive plans for possible next steps.
The following day, September 6, 2026, Witkoff and Kushner traveled to Kyiv and met with Zelenskyy and Ukrainian officials.
Then, on September 8, while Zelenskyy was leaving Moldova for Norway, a Russian drone reportedly entered Moldovan airspace. Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said Zelenskyy’s aircraft was “almost hit by a drone.” However, officials have not publicly provided enough information to establish exactly how close the drone came or whether Zelenskyy’s aircraft was actually the intended target.
That raises some obvious questions.
Was the drone actually targeting Zelenskyy’s aircraft? How close did it come? Who knew Zelenskyy would be at the airport, and who knew when his aircraft was scheduled to depart? Was this simply a dangerous coincidence, or was something more deliberate happening?
Those questions deserve answers.
Conflicting elements also surround the incident. Moldovan authorities confirmed that Russian drones entered Moldovan airspace, with one eventually crashing and another traveling into Romania. Moldova temporarily closed its airspace, delaying several flights, including Zelenskyy’s. At the same time, a Ukrainian source reportedly suggested that the threat to Zelenskyy’s aircraft had been exaggerated.
That makes independent clarification even more important.
Zelenskyy was not traveling anonymously. He was a highly visible head of state traveling internationally for a major public event. His trip to Norway was connected to the funeral of King Harald V, and his presence in Oslo was known. He also met with Norwegian officials and defense-industry representatives while there.
So why hasn’t there been more scrutiny of the circumstances surrounding the incident?
To be clear, no public evidence currently proves that a secret deal, “back-handed” arrangement, or connection between the diplomatic meetings and the drone incident existed. I am not claiming that one did.
But I do believe the sequence of events warrants closer examination.
On September 5, Kushner and Witkoff met Putin.
On September 6, they met Zelenskyy in Kyiv.
On September 8, Zelenskyy’s plane was reportedly almost struck by a Russian drone while departing Moldova.
Three days separated the Putin meeting from the reported drone incident.
Could there be a completely innocent explanation? Absolutely.
Could the drone have had nothing whatsoever to do with Zelenskyy? Absolutely.
But when high-level diplomatic negotiations take place behind closed doors while the leaders involved are moving through a region in an active war, unusual incidents deserve scrutiny.
The public deserves to know what actually happened.
How close did the drone come? Was Zelenskyy’s aircraft the intended target? How was the threat identified? Who knew the president was at the airport? And what exactly was discussed during the diplomatic meetings taking place in the days immediately preceding the incident?
