Lithuanian lawmakers shelter, Vilnius air traffic suspended due to drone incursion
Drone Incident Disrupts Lithuanian Capital
By Andrius Sytas
VILNIUS, May 20 (Reuters) - Lithuanian lawmakers were forced to shelter underground on Wednesday and air traffic at Vilnius airport was temporarily suspended after a drone violated the country's airspace, the latest in a series of security incidents in the Baltic region.
The NATO and European Union member state also suspended train traffic around the capital Vilnius, while schools and kindergartens were told to take children to shelters.
Immediate Response and Public Alerts
"Immediately take shelter in a safe place, take care of your close ones, await new recommendations," Lithuania's army said in an alert sent to people in the capital Vilnius.
An alert was also issued in the Vilnius parliament building, where parliamentarians and ministers were in attendance.
Military and Government Actions
Speaking to Reuters at an underground shelter, Defence Minister Robertas Kaunas said military aircraft were seeking to neutralise the threat.
"The NATO Air Policing Mission is activated and targeting a drone detected in Lithuanian airspace," Kaunas said.
Lithuania's alert came a day after a NATO fighter jet shot down a suspected Ukrainian drone over Estonia.
Baltic States Blame Russia
The Baltic states, all strong backers of Ukraine, have blamed the drone incidents on Moscow, saying it redirects Ukrainian drones from their intended targets in Russia, but without providing evidence for the claims.
The Kremlin said on Wednesday it was monitoring the situation. It has previously accused the Baltic states of letting Ukraine launch drones from their territory, which they strongly deny.
Details of the Drone Incursion
Kaunas said Wednesday's drone had come from Latvia. It was not known whether it had crashed or had left Lithuania, authorities said. NATO fighter jets were unable to locate it.
The incident lasted about an hour and the air warning was then lifted. Air and train traffic also resumed.
Regional Security Context
Ukraine has stepped up long-range drone attacks on Russia, including around the Baltic Sea. Since March, several Ukrainian military drones have strayed into the airspace of NATO members Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, which all border Russia.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said on Wednesday the alliance's response to the Estonia incident had been "calm, decisive and proportionate".
"If drones come from Ukraine, they are not there because Ukraine wanted to send a drone to Latvia, Lithuania or Estonia. They are there because of the reckless, illegal full-scale attack of Russia," Rutte told reporters in Brussels.
The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said in a post on X that Russian threats to the Baltic countries were "unacceptable" and would be seen as threats to the whole European Union.
The Latvian government resigned last week over its handling of the incursions.
Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal on Wednesday told parliament he was seeking broader powers to deal with threats from military drones, aiming to close gaps in detection, response and protection of critical sites.
Were the Drones Redirected?
Lithuanian Foreign Affairs Minister Kestutis Budrys said on X that the incidents were "a transparent act of desperation (by Russia) - an attempt to sow chaos and distract from a simple reality: Ukraine is hitting Russia's military machine hard".
"My message to the Kremlin: nice try. Failed again."
Expert Analysis on Drone Manipulation
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia's military was closely monitoring the situation regarding drones flying through the Baltic states' airspace, and was formulating an appropriate response, Russian state news agency TASS reported on Wednesday.
Drone expert Hans Liwang, from the Swedish Defence University, said it was technically possible to manipulate and, to some extent, steer Ukrainian drones, if they were guided by satellite-based communications systems such as GPS or GNSS.
"But it's probably reasonable that these navigate by a lot of other means, for example that they have a camera that simply recognises objects, such as roads, to guide them," he said.
Liwang said the Ukrainian drones were similar to Iranian and Russian Shahed drones and could also navigate by tracking local cell phone signals, adding that the relatively small number of stray drones indicated that Russia had limited capacity to manipulate them.
"If it had been the case that the Russians could successfully steer drones over the Baltics, then we would probably have seen more than we have seen so far," he said.
Reporting Credits
(Reporting by Andrius Sytas in Vilnius, Bart Meijer in Brussels, Barbara Erling and Pawel Florkiewicz in Warsaw, Johan Ahlander in Stockholm and Essi Lehto in Helsinki, writing by Terje Solsvik and Gwladys Fouche, editing by Chiara Rodriquez and Gareth Jones)
