Lithuanian leaders and residents take shelter over drone alert

Residents were told to take shelter and Lithuania’s president and prime minister were taken to safe locations because of an alarm over drone activity near the border with Belarus, underlining jitters on Nato’s eastern flank over incursions related to Russia’s war with Ukraine.

An emergency announcement from the military on Wednesday told people in the Vilnius region to “immediately head to a shelter or a safe place”.

The alert, which lasted for about an hour, also led to the closure of the airspace over Vilnius Airport.

President Gitanas Nauseda and Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene were taken to shelters, and there was also an evacuation order at Lithuania’s parliament, the Seimas, the BNS news agency reported.

It was the first major alert that sent residents and political leaders in a European Union and Nato capital rushing to shelters since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

“Based on the parameters we saw, it’s most likely either a combat drone or a drone designed to deceive systems and lure targets,” Vilmantas Vitkauskas, head of Lithuania’s National Crisis Management Centre, said in a news briefing.

“The electronic countermeasures here can’t tell us whether an explosive device detonated or not.

“It’s very, very difficult.”

Based on the altitude and speed, it was probably a drone, he said, “though we can’t say at this stage exactly what kind of drone it was or where it was launched from”.

Lithuania borders Russia-allied Belarus to the east and Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave to the west.

Wednesday’s alert came after the military said it detected drone activity in Belarus, but no drones were sighted over Lithuania.

Belarus reported the potential drone to Lithuania, according to Brigadier General Nerijus Stankevicius, commander of the Lithuanian Army’s Land Forces.

Officials “received a report from the Belarusian armed forces regarding drones potentially moving toward Lithuanian territory… Our neighbours in Latvia received similar information,” Brig Gen Stankevicius told reporters.

On Wednesday, Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte commended the alliance’s reaction to several drone incidents in recent days, saying that they had been met with “a calm, decisive and proportionate response”.

“This is exactly what we planned and prepared for,” he said, blaming Russia’s war on Ukraine for the problem.

In recent months, Ukrainian drones aimed at Russia have crossed or come down in Nato territory on numerous occasions.

Western officials have blamed what they say is likely Russian electronic jamming of the drones.

Russia, meanwhile, has renewed threats that it would retaliate if Ukrainian drones are launched from Baltic countries or if those countries are complicit in their use against Russia.

On Tuesday evening, Lithuanian foreign minister Kęstutis Budrys wrote on social media that “Russia is deliberately redirecting Ukrainian drones into Baltic airspace while waging smear campaigns” against Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

“It’s a transparent act of desperation — an attempt to sow chaos and distract from a simple reality: (Ukraine) is hitting Russian military machine hard.”

Mr Budrys’s comment came hours after a Nato jet shot down a Ukrainian drone over southern Estonia.

Ukraine apologised for that “unintended incident” without specifying what had happened.

Last week, Latvia’s government collapsed following an argument over the handling of multiple incidents involving stray drones suspected to be from Ukraine.

The defence minister was forced to quit after his party withdrew its support for him, and the prime minister then resigned.

The governing coalition had been under strain for months over several other issues.

In a recent escalation of aerial attacks, Russia and Ukraine have sometimes fired hundreds of drones a day at each other.

Ukraine’s air force said on Wednesday that it shot down 131 out of 154 drones that Russia launched overnight. #

The ones that got past air defences killed three civilians and wounded 18 others, including two children, officials said.

Ukraine, meanwhile, continued its aerial campaign against Russia’s vital oil industry, with the General Staff reporting its drones struck a major Russian oil refinery and a pipeline pumping station overnight.

Russian media reports also indicated that a chemical plant in the southern Stavropol region was hit and caught fire, although local officials did not confirm any direct hit.