Agencies
A suspected drone exploded over Lithuania after triggering an alert that forced residents in northern and central areas to seek shelter for an hour on Sunday morning, the president and other defence officials said. Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said later it regretted the incident in Lithuania’s airspace, adding that it may have resulted from Russian electronic warfare diverting drones off course. “Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine is spilling over onto the Eastern flank of NATO and ?EU,” Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said on X. “What appears to be a drone exploded over the northern part of the country, posing a danger to the civilian population,” he added. Poland’s military said it was also verifying a possible violation of its airspace by an unidentified object. A Polish Defence Ministry spokesperson later said radar systems did not confirm the object crossing the border into Lithuania, but added that Polish authorities were remaining in contact with Lithuanian officials. During the “red” alert, NATO fighter jets were scrambled to the area, and Kaunas airport, near Lithuania’s second-largest city, was temporarily closed, the Lithuanian government’s crisis management centre said. The NATO aircraft were unable to visually identify the object ?due to cloudy weather and did not attempt to shoot it down, the centre said.