Lithuanian lawmakers shelter, Vilnius air traffic suspended due to drone incursion

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.

“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.

Speaking to Reuters at an underground shelter, Defence Minister Robertas Kaunas said military aircraft were seeking to neutralize 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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 recognizes 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.

周三，一架无人机侵犯立陶宛领空，导致立陶宛议员被迫躲入地下避难，维尔纽斯机场的空中交通也暂时中止。这是波罗的海地区近期发生的一系列安全事件中的最新一起。

这个北约和欧盟成员国还暂停了首都维尔纽斯周边的火车交通，并要求学校和幼儿园将孩子们送到避难所。

立陶宛军方向首都维尔纽斯的人民发出警报：“立即在安全的地方避难，照顾好你的亲人，等待新的建议。”

维尔纽斯议会大楼也发布了警报，当时议员和部长们都在场。

国防部长罗伯塔斯·考纳斯在地下掩体接受路透社采访时表示，军用飞机正在努力消除这一威胁。

“北约空中警戒任务已经启动，目标是在立陶宛领空发现的一架无人机，”考纳斯说。

立陶宛发出警报的前一天，一架北约战斗机在爱沙尼亚上空击落了一架疑似乌克兰无人机。

波罗的海三国都是乌克兰的坚定支持者，它们将无人机事件归咎于莫斯科，称莫斯科将乌克兰无人机从其在俄罗斯的预定目标上转移开来，但没有提供任何证据来支持这些说法。

克里姆林宫周三表示，正在密切关注局势。此前，克里姆林宫曾指责波罗的海国家允许乌克兰从其领土发射无人机，但波罗的海国家对此予以强烈否认。

考纳斯方面周三表示，这架无人机来自拉脱维亚。当局称，目前尚不清楚它是坠毁了还是已经离开立陶宛。北约战斗机未能找到它的踪迹。

事件持续约一小时后，空中警报解除，空中和铁路交通也恢复正常。

乌克兰加大了对俄罗斯的远程无人机袭击力度，包括在波罗的海周边地区。自3月以来，多架乌克兰军用无人机闯入北约成员国芬兰、拉脱维亚、立陶宛和爱沙尼亚的领空，这些国家都与俄罗斯接壤。

北约秘书长马克·吕特周三表示，北约对爱沙尼亚事件的反应是“冷静、果断和适度的”。

“如果无人机来自乌克兰，那不是因为乌克兰想向拉脱维亚、立陶宛或爱沙尼亚派遣无人机，而是因为俄罗斯鲁莽、非法的全面袭击，”吕特在布鲁塞尔对记者说。

欧盟委员会主席乌尔苏拉·冯德莱恩在X网站上发帖称，俄罗斯对波罗的海国家的威胁是“不可接受的”，并将被视为对整个欧盟的威胁。

上周，拉脱维亚政府因其对入侵事件的处理方式而辞职。

爱沙尼亚总理克里斯滕·米哈尔周三向议会表示，他正在寻求更大的权力来应对军用无人机的威胁，旨在弥补在关键地点的探测、响应和保护方面的不足。

立陶宛外交部长凯斯图蒂斯·布德里斯在X电视台表示，这些事件是“（俄罗斯）绝望之举，意在制造混乱，转移人们对一个简单的现实的注意力：乌克兰正在重创俄罗斯的军事机器。”

“我对克里姆林宫的讯息是：不错，但又失败了。”

据俄罗斯国家通讯社塔斯社周三报道，克里姆林宫发言人德米特里·佩斯科夫表示，俄罗斯军方正在密切关注无人机飞越波罗的海国家空域的情况，并正在制定适当的应对措施。

瑞典国防大学的无人机专家汉斯·利旺表示，如果乌克兰无人机由 GPS 或 GNSS 等卫星通信系统引导，那么从技术上讲，操纵乌克兰无人机并在一定程度上控制其飞行是可能的。

“但这些机器人很可能通过其他方式进行导航，例如，它们可能配备摄像头来识别道路等物体，从而引导它们前进，”他说。

李旺表示，乌克兰无人机与伊朗和俄罗斯的“沙赫德”无人机类似，也可以通过追踪当地手机信号进行导航。他还补充说，相对较少的失控无人机表明俄罗斯操控无人机的能力有限。

他说：“如果俄罗斯人能够成功地操控无人机飞越波罗的海地区，那么我们可能看到的就比目前看到的要多得多。”