Overview
- The Lithuanian military ordered people in Vilnius into shelters Wednesday after radar picked up an object near the Belarus border, then lifted the air-danger alert about 40 minutes later as flights and trains resumed.
- Top officials, including President Gitanas Nauseda and Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene, moved to secure locations, and lawmakers in parliament went to underground shelters during the pause in air and rail traffic.
- Commanders said the radar track matched an unmanned aircraft, and NATO’s air policing mission—fighter jets that guard Baltic airspace, including Romanian F-16s—began tracking the target.
- European leaders blamed Russia and Belarus for the drone threat, while the Kremlin rejected the charge, reflecting a widening dispute over responsibility for drone incidents near NATO territory.
- The alert followed Tuesday’s shootdown of a suspected Ukrainian drone over Estonia and adds to a months-long pattern of stray or diverted drones in the Baltics, which has already carried political costs, including the recent fall of Latvia’s government, as Lithuanian authorities now probe the object’s origin and purpose.