NATO fighter jets scrambled on alert overnight made two attempts to shoot down a drone that had entered Lithuanian airspace, but both attempts were unsuccessful. This was reported today by Chief of Defence Staff of the Lithuanian Armed Forces Giedrius Premeneckas.
According to LRT, Premeneckas said that three drones had initially been spotted on the Belarusian side. They did not cross the border and continued towards Latvia.
At 1:20 a.m., another drone was detected. It crossed the border from Belarus and briefly entered Poland. It should be noted that Poland’s Ministry of National Defence has denied that the drone entered its territory.
The drone subsequently changed direction sharply and flew back into Lithuanian airspace. NATO fighter jets detected it near Kaunas but were unable to shoot it down for safety reasons.
“Why was the drone not shot down? At the initial stage, when the drone was being tracked effectively by electromagnetic systems, it was over an urbanised area — the city of Kaunas. A decision was made at that point not to shoot it down. Conditions then deteriorated somewhat, and the fighter jets had to make several passes at the target before they could adjust. Shots were fired when possible, but due to various circumstances that I will not mention here, the drone was not shot down,” LRT quoted Premeneckas as saying.
According to him, one missile missed its target and self-destructed. Its debris fell in the Biržai area and has already been found.
Meanwhile, Vilmantas Vitkauskas, head of the National Crisis Management Centre, said that smuggling activity had also been observed overnight. In addition to the two drone incidents, radars detected around 10 signals consistent with weather balloons. This led to restrictions on aircraft landings at Vilnius Airport.