Overview
- Early Tuesday, two Italian Eurofighter F-2000 jets deployed under NATO Baltic Air Policing scrambled from Šiauliai and shot down an unidentified drone that had violated Lithuanian airspace.
- Lithuanian authorities recovered wreckage near Kaunas and specialists are collecting debris to identify the drone type and to determine if it carried explosives.
- NATO and Lithuanian sources say the object likely entered from Belarus and is suspected to be of Russian origin, but formal forensic confirmation and official attribution are still pending.
- Italy's defence minister Guido Crosetto visited the base and said the incident underlines the importance of allied deployments on NATO’s eastern flank and support for deployed personnel.
- The shootdown fits a pattern of low-signature cross-border drone activity tied to the Russia-Belarus axis and raises questions about escalation, with NATO investigating the forensics and diplomatic implications next.