Nato fighter jets have shot down a drone over Lithuania after an alert was issued in the capital, Vilnius, and the surrounding region, in an incident that Lithuania says involved an aircraft entering from neighbouring Belarus.
Emergency authorities said the drone was brought down early on Tuesday near Pratkunai, a village in central-southern Lithuania outside the city of Kaunas. Information from Lithuania's crisis management centre, reported by national radio LRT, indicated the drone came from Belarus and was heading west when it was intercepted.
The alert in Vilnius and the surrounding area was issued before the interception, and Nato aircraft were tasked with responding to the incursion. The shoot-down came less than a day after Poland scrambled fighter jets and retrieved a suspected Russian drone adrift in its waters, a sequence of events that has sharpened attention on air and maritime security along Nato's eastern flank.
Lithuania shares a long border with Belarus, a close ally of Russia, and the Baltic state has repeatedly raised concerns about incursions into its airspace since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Vilnius has hosted Nato air policing missions for years, with allied jets based in the country to protect its skies.
The drone's downing near Kaunas, Lithuania's second city, placed the incident well inside national territory rather than at the frontier. Emergency authorities gave the location as Pratkunai, a small settlement in the central-southern part of the country, and said the interception took place in the early hours of Tuesday.
There was no immediate public account of damage or casualties on the ground. The crisis management centre's information, relayed by LRT, described the drone as having crossed from Belarus and travelling westward before Nato jets engaged it.
The episode follows a pattern of heightened vigilance across the Baltic region and Poland, where air defences have been placed on alert after repeated reports of drones and other aerial objects entering allied territory. Warsaw's retrieval of a suspected Russian drone from its waters, coming so soon before the Lithuanian incident, underlined the pressure on Nato's eastern members.
Nato air policing in the Baltics is a standing mission in which allied fighter jets based in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia respond to unidentified aircraft. The arrangement has been reinforced since 2022, and Tuesday's interception is the kind of operation the mission is designed to handle.
Officials in Vilnius have not yet said what type of drone was involved or where it was launched from beyond the indication that it entered from Belarus. The crisis management centre's account, as reported by LRT, remains the main official description of the flight path.
The incident is likely to feature in discussions among Nato members about the protection of allied airspace, particularly along the borders with Belarus and Russia. Lithuania's authorities have consistently called for stronger air defences and for a firm allied response to violations of their territory.
For residents of Vilnius and the surrounding region, the alert was lifted after the drone was destroyed. Emergency authorities confirmed the shoot-down near Pratkunai, outside Kaunas, and the crisis management centre's information pointed to Belarus as the point of origin.
The downing is the latest in a series of airspace incidents involving Nato's eastern members, and it comes as Poland and the Baltic states maintain elevated readiness. Further details on the drone and the circumstances of its flight were not immediately released.
