VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — Residents of Lithuania’s capital were told to take shelter and the president and prime minister were taken to safe locations on Wednesday after an alarm over drone activity near the border with Belarus, underlining jitters on NATO’s eastern flank over incursions related to Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine.
An emergency announcement from the military urged people in the region of Vilnius, the country’s capital, to “immediately head to a shelter or a safe place.”
The alert, which lasted for about an hour, also led to the closure of the airspace over Vilnius Airport. President Gitanas Nauseda and Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene were taken to shelters, and there was also an evacuation order at Lithuania’s parliament, the Seimas, the BNS news agency reported.
It was the first major alert that sent residents and political leaders in a European Union and NATO capital rushing to shelters since Russia’s invasion of neighbor Ukraine in February 2022.
It came hours after a NATO jet shot down a Ukrainian drone over southern Estonia. Ukraine apologized for that “unintended incident,” without specifying what had happened.