Lithuania was brought to a standstill on Tuesday after a drone alert prompted the country's top leaders to take cover, suspended air traffic at Vilnius airport, and briefly halted road and rail travel in the capital. President Gitanas Nauseda and Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene were moved to emergency shelters, while lawmakers and staff at the Seimas — Lithuania's parliament — were evacuated to a basement. The alert has since been lifted.
Lithuania's national crisis management centre said the alert was triggered by a drone detected in neighbouring Belarus that appeared to be flying toward Lithuanian territory. The drone's origin was not confirmed, and the country's defence ministry urged residents to "immediately take shelter in a safe place" and await further guidance. Nato jets were scrambled to locate and intercept the drone but were unable to find it.
The incident is the latest in a series of drone incursions over the three Baltic states — Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania — which are all Nato members bordering Russia or its close ally Belarus. Just a day earlier, Estonia reported that a Nato fighter jet had shot down a drone over its territory, suspected to be a Ukrainian projectile knocked off course by Russian electronic jamming. Ukraine acknowledged the incident, apologising to "Estonia and all of our Baltic friends" and accusing Moscow of deliberately redirecting Ukrainian drones that had been launched at military targets inside Russia.
The regional pattern has intensified in recent weeks. Earlier this month, two Ukrainian drones struck an empty oil storage facility in Latvia, with Kyiv again attributing the misdirection to Russian electronic interference. Latvia's Prime Minister Evika Silina resigned last week following a political crisis linked to the stray drone incidents. Similar events were recorded in Estonia and Latvia as far back as March.
The situation reflects a widening spillover from the war in Ukraine, which has seen Kyiv intensify drone and missile strikes against Russian infrastructure near the Baltic region. Moscow, for its part, has accused the three Baltic states of allowing Ukraine to use their airspace as corridors to strike targets inside Russia — a charge all three governments have flatly denied. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that Russian military authorities were monitoring the drone incidents and formulating a response, adding another layer of tension to an already volatile regional security environment.