The presence of a drone puts Lithuania on alert

The presence of a drone puts Lithuania on alert October 18, 2026A drone that caused an air alert in Lithuania and Latvia in the middle of a nocturnal Ukrainian attack on St. Petersburg and the adjacent region of Leningrad launched NATO jets at dawn and finally crashed near Pasvalys, in northern Lithuania, along the border with Latvia. "Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine is extending to the eastern flank of NATO and the European Union," wrote the Lithuanian president, Gitanas Nauseda, on the social network X, without the origin of the drone yet being identified. According to the Lithuanian public radio and television, LRT, the drone had entered the airspace of Lithuania probably from Poland, to the south. "Visual contact was not possible" After receiving information about the sound of an explosion in Pasvalys, the Lithuanian military police carried out an inspection of the territory and found fragments of the remains of a drone in the town of Juodžionys, in the Pasvalys district. The Minister of Defense, Robertas Kaunas, stated that the object was detected by Lithuanian radars at 03:00 GMT and the NATO air defense mission was activated, which launched jets from the Šiauliai base to identify it. "Unfortunately, due to the weather conditions, visual contact was not possible," he explained. Kaunas added that they had proposed a joint investigation with Poland to determine the origin of the drone. The Prime Minister of Lithuania, Mindaugas Sinkevičius, stated that the possibility of an act of sabotage must be evaluated, according to LRT. The head of government has convened a meeting of the National Security Committee for Monday to investigate where the drone came from and where it began to be detected by the radars. In the same message with which he announced it, Sinkevičius denounced an attempt during the night to set fire to a local company where satellite internet communication equipment from the company SpaceX, owned by the multimillionaire American Elon Musk, was stored. "The competent services had warned this company of possible attacks, security had been reinforced and the attempted attack failed," he wrote on the Facebook social network. The Prime Minister of Lithuania stressed that Lithuania is watching "very closely the activities of hostile states and is taking measures to protect people and their property." Two walls of protection The alert messages sent to mobile phones in the areas of both countries urged residents to take shelter and seek a place with at least two walls between themselves and the outside. The alerts were deactivated in both countries shortly after 05:00 GMT. The alert for the drone and its subsequent fall constituted the first serious incident since NATO jets shot down an errant Russian drone over Lithuania on September 15th. On August 14th, a NATO jet also shot down an errant Ukrainian drone over Latvia. Don't let the algorithm hide the news. If you trust this site for reliable information, please take a moment to select us as your preferred source on Google: click here and check the box or press the DW.com button to always see our verified news in your preferences. lgc (efe, rtr)