Drone explodes in Lithuania as NATO jets fail to identify it
Clouds kept pilots from seeing the object. Vilnius says it came from Poland; Warsaw says its radars did not register a crossing.
An unidentified object, probably a drone, flew over Lithuania on Sunday and exploded in the north of the country, President Gitanas Nausėda said. Lithuania, a NATO member, borders Belarus and Kaliningrad, Russia's Baltic exclave. Under a red alert, people in the north and center of the country sheltered for about an hour, Reuters reported. No one was hurt.
Fragments of the craft hit a private car, Defense Minister Robertas Kaunas said. Soldiers combed the ground near the village of Juodžionys, and Kaunas airport, in the country's second-largest city, suspended operations for a time. According to Euronews, the minister said clouds kept the pilots from seeing the object.
An alliance official told Reuters that two Italian Eurofighters took off under NATO command. They could not identify the object and did not try to shoot it down. It dropped off the radar, possibly after the explosion.
Its origin is disputed. Kaunas said the craft came from Poland and asked for a joint investigation with his Polish counterpart. Warsaw, through its Defense Ministry, replied that its radars did not register any crossing of the border.
Nausėda said Russia's aggression against Ukraine is "spilling over" onto the eastern flank of NATO and the European Union, according to The Kyiv Independent. Ukraine's foreign ministry spokesman, Heorhii Tykhyi, apologized for "any disruption, risks, and concern" the episode may have caused. Reuters notes that Ukrainian drones have strayed into Baltic airspace several times, which Kyiv blames on Russian electronic interference. None of the sources consulted confirms whose craft exploded.
A day earlier, Romanian jets shot down two drones over the Black Sea. Still pending are the result of the joint investigation Lithuania proposed and the recovery of any debris.
