It is still unknown whether the drone fell in Lithuania or left the country's territory

Vilmantas Vitkauskas, head of the National Crisis Management Center, stated that it is currently unclear whether the drone, which allegedly flew into Lithuania and caused an air alert to be declared, fell on the country's territory or left it, reports LRT.

At a press conference on Wednesday afternoon, Vilmantas Vitkauskas announced that the first signal about a possible drone intrusion came from Latvia.

“A 'yellow' level of air danger was declared in the Daugavpils region of Latvia,” Vitkauskas said. He reminded that such a warning level means that a military object that could pose a threat to residents and infrastructure might have entered the country's airspace.

After this, reports were received from the army, which, with the help of radars, detected an object approaching the Lithuanian border. Radar systems tracked it in the Ignalina district.

“In fact, at 9:40 AM, a border crossing was recorded, and together with the Fire Protection and Rescue Department, we sent out messages to the population, primarily to the residents of the Ignalina district, warning them of a possible air danger. Then the warning zone was expanded, as it was assumed that the drone was flying towards Vilnius, and the trajectory was such that other districts also needed to be warned. Residents of Vilnius received the warning around 10 AM,” Vitkauskas said.

According to him, at 11:09 AM, the object disappeared from radars. However, for now, the center cannot answer whether the drone fell or left the territory of Lithuania and flew to another country.

“At this moment, we cannot answer. We are awaiting data from the army. Such is the situation. Residents were warned, we did not record any serious alarm or panic.

Of course, there were isolated cases where schools or other institutions did not have clear instructions on what to do with students or employees. But we will evaluate this situation and make every effort to minimize such uncertainty in the future,” Vitkauskas said.

Answering why the sirens were not activated, Vitkauskas explained that their activation takes time. According to him, after sending messages to residents' mobile phones, a later activation of sirens could have caused even more confusion.

“When the sirens were already ready to be activated, we received data that the drone might have already left the area. To avoid causing additional panic, the decision was made not to activate the sirens, as the air alert was canceled a few minutes later.

It's a matter of time, because sirens do not have a cancellation mechanism. There are sirens that can transmit certain information by voice, but the system of informing residents in such cases is much more convenient,” Vitkauskas noted.

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