NATO fighter jets shoot down drone over Lithuania

NATO fighter jets have shot down a drone over the Baltic country, according to Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda. “A drone that had just entered Lithuanian airspace was shot down by NATO fighter jets,” Nauseda said on Tuesday on the online service X. He added that “in view of Russia's increasing aggression against Ukraine, such operational readiness is crucial for our region.”

The Lithuanian public broadcaster LRT reported, citing the state crisis management center NKVC, that the drone was launched in Belarus. It fell in a rural region near Lake Kaunas in the center of the country.

The Baltic states of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia are among Ukraine's most vehement supporters. Estonia and Latvia each share a border with Russia that is more than 280 kilometers long. All three countries have repeatedly reported the intrusion of drones into their airspace in the wake of the Ukraine war.

Because of a drone alarm in Vilnius, Lithuania, a protection order for the population and the head of state was triggered in May for the first time since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine in the capital of an EU and NATO state. Public life in Lithuania's capital came to a brief standstill and the President, Prime Minister and MPs had to flee to safety. Shortly afterwards the all-clear was given. Two days earlier, a drone presumably belonging to Ukraine crashed over Lithuania.

Alerts like the one in Vilnius had previously occurred more frequently as Ukraine had intensified its attacks on Russian targets in the nearby St. Petersburg region at the time.

Moscow's accusations

Just one day before the drone alarm in Vilnius, a NATO fighter jet stationed in Lithuania shot down an apparently stray Ukrainian drone over Estonia. It was the first interception of a foreign drone in the airspace of a Baltic state by NATO since the start of Russia's war of aggression in 2022. Kiev accused Moscow of deliberately redirecting Ukrainian drones to the Baltic states.

In neighboring Latvia, a drone incident triggered a government crisis at the beginning of May. Prime Minister Evika Silina then resigned.

Moscow repeatedly accuses the three former Soviet republics of serving Ukraine as a base for attacks on Russian territory. The countries reject this.

NATO had strengthened its eastern flank in the wake of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine. Germany has also commissioned its own brigade, which is permanently stationed in Lithuania. The Lithuania Brigade was officially put into service in April 2025, and by the end of 2027 it is expected to have reached its full troop strength of 4,800 soldiers and 200 civilian employees and will therefore be operational.