Flights stopped at Vilnius airport at 10 a.m. on Wednesday. The sirens had gone off, and people in the Lithuanian capital were told to find shelter.
The trigger was a suspected drone coming in from Belarus, spotted near the border, according to the Lithuanian Ministry of Defense. The ministry said in a statement that an air alert had been issued in parts of the country. NATO fighter jets were scrambled, and the alliance’s air patrols over the Baltic states were activated after a radar signature showed up over Belarus.
From yellow to red
The alert grew in stages. Drone activity was first picked up close to the border, near the Ignalina, Utena, Zarasai and Švenčionys districts in eastern Lithuania. People there got a public warning about a possible drone and a yellow alert level for an air threat. The warning was then widened to Vilnius and the region around it, where a red emergency level was declared.
It was short. Lithuania’s National Crisis Management Center reported that the alert in Vilnius was cancelled shortly before 11 a.m. (0800 GMT), according to Xinhua.
Military officials described the episode as similar to what Latvia and Estonia have dealt with in recent days, and called warning residents a standard preventive step.
A run of incidents
The Baltic states have seen a surge in drone incidents. Latvia warned of a possible threat to its airspace on May 17 in several regions along the Russian border after an unidentified drone appeared. On Tuesday, a NATO Baltic Air Policing fighter jet shot down a drone that had entered Estonian airspace over Lake Vortsjarv at around noon. Reports said it was the first time a NATO jet on patrol had downed one over Estonia.
Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys said separately that NATO has the means to raze Russian air defense and missile bases in Kaliningrad to the ground.
Sources
- Lithuania declares air raid alert over drone from Belarus
- Lithuania briefly issues air raid alert over drone intrusion fears
