Several NATO fighters shot down a drone that was flying over the airspace of Lithuania after midnight this Tuesday, specifically in the area of the Kaunas district, after alarms were activated due to its sighting. The incident has led to the declaration of a state of alert in various areas of the country, including Vilnius, the capital of the Baltic state.
"A drone has been successfully neutralized over Lithuanian territory," the Ministry of Defense of this country has reported on social media, highlighting in the same publication that "the Armed Forces of Lithuania and the Italian pilots serving in the NATO Air Defense Mission have provided a quick and responsible response."
Minutes before that official message, Lithuanian authorities had declared a yellow alert for "potentially detected drone" in the districts of Elektrėnai, Trakai, Kaunas, and Vilnius, as well as in the city of Vilnius itself, through the national civil protection and emergency management platform LT72.
Shortly after the announcement from the Ministry of Defense, the LT72 platform —under the Ministry of the Interior— disseminated another notice informing of the lifting of the yellow alert in all previously affected areas.
On the other hand, the head of the National Crisis Management Center (NKVC, by its Lithuanian acronym), Vilmantas Vitkauskas, explained to the public broadcaster LRT that the drone was shot down in the vicinity of the town of Pratkunai, in the Kaisiadorys district, belonging to the Kaunas province.
After the interception, "forces have been deployed to identify what type of drone it is, what its characteristics are, and what its flight objective was," Vitkauskas indicated.