A Drone Flew Into Lithuania From Belarus
4- 11.11.2026, 14:16
- 1,550
NATO fighter jets tried to shoot it down twice.
On the night of November 11, a drone entered Lithuanian airspace from Belarus; NATO fighter jets attempted to shoot it down twice, but were unsuccessful. Debris from one of the missiles fired was found within the country’s borders, according to Delfi.
According to the Chief of the Lithuanian Defense Staff Gedrius Premenyckas, around 1:20 a.m. local time (2:20 a.m. Minsk time), a drone crossed the border with Belarus, briefly entered Polish airspace, and then returned to Lithuanian airspace.
The drone was visually spotted in the Kaunas area, but authorities did not shoot it down over the city due to the danger to residents. When the drone headed north toward Panevėžys, NATO fighter jets made two attempts to shoot it down, but both were unsuccessful.
One of the missiles fired missed its target—its debris was found in the Biržai district of Lithuania. According to the BNS news agency, the missile self-destructed. The Lithuanian military has not yet identified the type of drone and does not know whether it was carrying explosives.
The drone itself continued its flight through Latvia and Estonia, after which, according to the Lithuanian military, it entered Russian territory.
In total, the Lithuanian military recorded four drones overnight. Three of them were spotted over Belarus—they were moving toward Lithuania but did not cross its border, instead heading toward Latvia.
Residents of several regions in Lithuania received yellow- and red-level air threat warnings. Some heard the sounds of fighter jets and saw flashes in the sky.
“There were flashes, like lightning,” one resident of northern Lithuania told Delfi.
Another admitted that the incident frightened him: “It’s unsettling—who knows what’s going to happen here. They could hit a house; that’s no laughing matter.”
According to local residents, there are no nearby equipped shelters, so in case of danger, they would have to hide in basements.
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda called the past night “restless and difficult.” He reported that Lithuanian surveillance systems detected the drones even before they approached the border, and fighter jets were scrambled after the airspace was violated.
“Unfortunately, as long as Russia’s all-out war against Ukraine continues, incidents involving drones entering Lithuanian territory may recur,” he wrote on Facebook.
The head of Lithuania’s National Crisis Management Center Vilmantas Vitkauskas called last night the most turbulent in the history of the services. In addition to drones, weather balloons carrying contraband were detected over the country, leading to restrictions on airport operations.
As a reminder, on the evening of November 10, the Lithuanian military detected an aerial object approximately 30 kilometers from the border with Belarus. Residents of the Vilnius and Utena districts were sent warnings about a possible air attack. Due to the threat, operations at the Vilnius and Kaunas airports were temporarily restricted. The alert was later lifted, and the airports resumed operations.
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