NATO jets scrambled as Lithuanian PM and president rushed to safe house over 'drone' threat
This is the first time that an alert of this kind has been sounded since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022
The president and prime minister of Lithuania were moved to safe houses on Wednesday after drone activity near the border with Belarus sounded the alert, warning residents of Vilnius to take shelter.
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People in the region of Vilnius were told by an emergency announcement from the military to “immediately head to a shelter or safe place”.
The alert, which went on for around an hour, also resulted in the airspace over Vilnius airport being closed.
President Gitanas Nauseda and Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene were moved to shelters, and an evacuation order was launched at the Seimas, Lithuania's parliament, according to the BNS news agency.
This is the first time that a major alert of this kind has been issued since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
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The Lithuanian Amy said that NATO jets had orders to detect and destroy the drone, but could not locate it.
"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 Center, told a news briefing.
"The electronic countermeasures here can't tell us whether an explosive device detonated or not. It's very, very difficult."
Vitkauskas believed it was probably a drone based on the altitude and speed, but added, "We can't say at this stage exactly what kind of drone it was or where it was launched."
The east of Lithuania is on the border of Russia-allied Belarus to the east, and to the west is Russia's Kaliningrad exclave.
The emergency alert came after the military said it had detected drone activity in Belarus but did not spot any drones over Lithuania.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte applauded the alliance's reaction to a number of drone incidents in recent days, adding on Wednesday that they had been met with "a calm, decisive and proportionate response."
Rutte pointed to Russia’s war with Ukraine as the cause of the issue and said, "This is exactly what we planned and prepared for."
NATO will bring foreign ministers together in Helsingborg, Sweden, on Thursday and Friday.