18.10.2026 22:20
Pieces of a UAV that crashed in northern Lithuania hit a moving car, and no one was injured. Ukraine apologized, saying that Russian jamming systems may have diverted its UAVs targeting Russia off course.
The wreckage of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that fell over northern Lithuania on Sunday morning and whose origin has not yet been confirmed hit a moving car. According to DW, Ukraine apologized after the incident. The Kyiv government stated that UAVs sent to targets in Russia may have deviated from their route due to Russian electronic jamming systems.
Lithuanian authorities called on residents of the country's central and northern regions to take shelter after an unidentified flying object was detected. Vilmantas Vitkauskas, head of the National Crisis Management Center, said on Lithuanian radio that the wreckage damaged a moving civilian vehicle, but no one was injured.
Defense Minister Robertas Kaunas said the UAV most likely entered the country via neighboring Poland and proposed a joint investigation with Warsaw. Where the UAV came from and whether it was carrying explosives are still being investigated.
A NATO spokesperson announced that two Italian Eurofighter fighter jets under alliance command were scrambled. Kaunas said the object could not be identified visually due to weather conditions.
Lithuania and other Baltic countries encountered numerous UAV violations during the war. Ukrainian UAVs sent to targets in northwestern Russia had previously strayed into Baltic airspace and crashed, while Russian-made UAVs entered Lithuania via Belarus. Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda described Sunday's incident as a new example of the war spilling over onto NATO's eastern flank.
Lithuania also announced that it was treating an attempt to set fire to a Starlink base station near the capital Vilnius as sabotage assessed to be linked to Russia and aimed at weakening Ukraine's military capacity. Vitkauskas said suspects who tried to set the facility on fire around 02:00 at night were being sought.
Source: DW