Lithuanian military forces on Wednesday failed to locate the drone that triggered an air alert declared in several regions of the country, including Vilnius.
“Yesterday, due to darkness, we had to suspend the search. Unfortunately, we found nothing. Therefore, additional capabilities have been deployed today. The weather, as I can see, seems good, cloud cover is not very low — a helicopter will be used, as yesterday, along with up to 100 soldiers from both the land forces and the military police. And we will continue what we started yesterday,” Lithuania’s Armed Forces Commander Raimundas Vaikšnoras told LRT today.
He also called on residents to share any information they may have.
Yesterday, it was announced that information about the drone had also come from Belarus. However, today Vaikšnoras said that the Lithuanian side had initially contacted the Belarusian side but received no response.
“When reports emerged about possible activity on the territory of Belarus, which we also observed in Latvia and probably our NATO allies did as well, about similar unclear activity, when certain objects were moving (…), the first thing that happened was a call from our operational air force units. But of course, as always, they initially denied everything, and when they probably had no other choice left, they called back and said that yes, there is a threat, there is a risk that they could fly into our territory,” he added.
The drone crossed the Lithuanian border yesterday at 9:40 a.m. and disappeared from radar at around 11:09 a.m. near the settlement of Merkinė in the south-west of the country.
The head of the National Crisis Management Centre, Vilmantas Vitkauskas, did not rule out the possibility that the UAV may have returned to Belarusian territory.
