Photo taken March 13, 2024 shows police tape attached to the scene where Leonid Volkov, a close ally of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, was attacked outside his home in Vilnius, Lithuania, on the evening of Tuesday March 12, 2024.
Petras Malukas | Afp | Getty Images
Lithuania asked residents in the central and northern parts of the country to take shelter for about an hour on Sunday morning after an unidentified flying object entered its airspace, the military and the national crisis management center said.
The object was probably a drone that entered from Poland, Defense Minister Robertas Kaunas told reporters, adding that he had proposed a joint investigation with his Polish counterpart.
The Polish military said it was also checking for a possible violation of its airspace by an unidentified object.
During the “red” alert, NATO air police fighters were dispatched to the area and Kaunas airport, near Lithuania’s second largest city, was temporarily closed, the crisis management center said.
NATO planes were unable to visually identify the object due to cloudy weather and did not attempt to shoot it down, the center said.
Lithuanian military personnel were investigating possible drone debris near the village of Juodzionys in northern Lithuania after the object disappeared from radar, the center said.
Some debris hit a civilian vehicle, Kaunas said.
NATO did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Northern neighbor Latvia briefly issued a “yellow” air alert in some areas bordering Lithuania, citing a “possible threat”, the Latvian military said.
Ukrainian drones have repeatedly entered NATO airspace in the Baltic region in recent months. Kyiv said they veered off course because of jamming of Russian signals.
This has fueled fears that Russia’s war in Ukraine could spill over into NATO’s borders.
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