Lithuania has evidence Sunday’s drone crossed from Poland, presidential adviser says

Lithuania has credible evidence that a drone that crashed in the country on Sunday crossed Poland’s border, President Gitanas Nausėda’s national security adviser said Monday.

“We have credible evidence that the drone crossed the Polish border,” Deividas Matulionis told BNS.

He was commenting on a report by Polish news portal polsatnews.pl, which cited sources in Poland’s Defence Ministry as saying the drone had been launched from Lithuanian territory about 30 kilometres from the Polish border and had not entered Polish airspace.

Matulionis cautioned against placing too much weight on the report, saying Lithuania had not yet received official information from Polish authorities.

“We should not assume that something is true just because it has been published somewhere. There is so much disinformation these days,” he said.

The drone entered Lithuanian airspace early Sunday, and debris was later found in the village of Juodžionys in the Pasvalys district. The aircraft exploded on impact, damaging a civilian car. No injuries were reported.

Separately, Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevičius said an arson attack was attempted overnight Sunday at premises in Vilnius used by US company SpaceX.

The prime minister linked the incident to Russia’s hybrid war against Europe. The attackers allegedly attempted to set fire to nine satellite antennas and a control unit on the company’s premises.

Matulionis said Russia was a likely suspect but stressed that Lithuanian authorities had not yet established responsibility conclusively.

“There is a high probability that Russia is behind this incident, but we do not yet have 100% confirmation and attribution,” he said.

The presidential adviser said the incident bore similarities to cases in Bulgaria and Poland and suggested the suspected arson may have been intended to disrupt access to SpaceX’s Starlink satellite network, which is used by Ukraine.

“What happened in Bulgaria, Poland and Lithuania is very similar, so it seems almost obvious that the aim was to restrict access to Starlink for Ukraine’s needs,” Matulionis said, adding that investigators could not yet disclose further details without potentially jeopardising the investigation.

He said the drone incursion and the attempted arson should not be linked.

“Just a coincidence,” he said.