Vilnius airport briefly shut and NATO jets scrambled over suspected drone

Lithuania issued a yellow air alert for Vilnius County and the Ukmergė area at around 09:50 on Saturday after a suspected drone crossed into its airspace from Belarus, the National Crisis Management Centre (NKVC) said. NATO fighter jets were scrambled and the controlled airspace around Vilnius airport was temporarily closed, though the airport itself kept operating with possible delays, Lithuanian airports authority said.

Authorities lifted the alert about 50 minutes later. Officials said the object had turned out not to be dangerous, though they could not identify it. "Whether it was birds or some other object, I cannot say," NKVC director Vilmantas Vitkauskas told LRT Radio. Fighter jets sent to the area found nothing there, Lithuania's armed forces said, and a military helicopter was sent to check the spot where a radar signal had disappeared.

Residents received mobile phone alerts urging them to identify a safe place in case of danger, and retail chain Maxima said it temporarily paused operations at shops, warehouses and workshops in the affected counties as a precaution. Train services were not suspended, as that step is only taken under a red-level alert, rail operator LTG said.

Vitkauskas said residents had reported a possible object moving beyond Vilnius towards Jonava, though this could not be confirmed since it was based on public reports rather than radar data. He said the object's speed was slower than usual, raising the possibility it was a flock of birds, though the NKVC said some indications pointed to a drone.

It was the second such incident in weeks. In mid-September, Italian fighter jets based in Lithuania shot down a drone that had entered from Belarus near the Kruonis pumped-storage plant in Kaišiadorys district, according to Lithuanian news agency BNS. President Gitanas Nausėda said at the time that Russia had likely launched the drone at a target in Ukraine but that it had been diverted into Lithuanian territory.