Residents of Lithuania’s capital told to shelter as drone alarm underlines NATO’s eastern jitters
- On Wednesday, Lithuania ordered an emergency shelter alert in Vilnius, moving President Gitanas Nauseda and Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene to safety while closing Vilnius Airport airspace due to detected drone activity near Belarus.
- Lithuania, a NATO and European Union member, borders Russia-allied Belarus and Kaliningrad, straining security as recent stray drone incidents contributed to Latvia's government collapse last week.
- Lithuanian Foreign Minister Budrys on Tuesday accused Russia of "deliberately redirecting Ukrainian drones into Baltic airspace," while Western officials suspect Russian electronic jamming caused the detected drone activity.
- Russia has renewed threats to retaliate if Baltic nations are complicit in using Ukrainian drones, despite Ukraine previously apologizing for an "unintended incident" involving stray drones.
- The alert marks the first major shelter mobilization in a European Union capital since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, underscoring growing insecurity on NATO's eastern fringe.
140 Articles
140 Articles
Drone Scare Forces Temporary Closure of Vilnius Airport
Lithuania temporarily shut Vilnius International Airport and issued shelter orders in several regions after a UAV alert, according to the defence ministry on Wednesday, May 20th. An emergency warning was sent to residents in the capital, instructing people to Go immediately to a shelter or a safe place, take care of your family members and wait for further instructions. Local media reported that the president and prime minister briefly took cov…
In Lithuania air alarm has been triggered because of the sighting of a drone.
This is a first for the Lithuanian capital: a drone alert sent the president, the prime minister and the population to the shelters on Wednesday morning in Vilnius, where transport was briefly paralyzed.
Russia attacked several Ukrainian cities last night. No one was injured in Lithuania.
NATO jets scrambled, Lithuanian leaders moved to safe location after Ukraine war drone detected
Lithuania's president and prime minister were taken to safe locations Wednesday and residents of Vilnius were told to take shelter because of an alarm over drone activity near the border with Belarus, underlining jitters on NATO's eastern fringe over incursions related to Russia's war with Ukraine.
The airstrike lasted for about an hour, and it has not yet been identified where the drone came from.
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