In Lithuania, a red alert level was announced for the first time due to a drone

An air raid alert was announced in several areas of Lithuania, including Vilnius, after the appearance of a “suspicious drone,” the country’s Ministry of Defensereported .

According to the department, the drone approached the border from Belarus.

Air raid warning. At first, the Lithuanian military announced a “yellow” alert level, but then a “red” alert level was introduced in the Vilnius district. The National Crisis Management Center said schools and day care centers should immediately move children into shelters.

According to Delfi, residents received emergency notifications urging them to go to safe places. The airport in Vilnius was temporarily closed and traffic stopped on the roads. According to the publication, the top officials of the state - President Gitanas Nausėda, Prime Minister Inga Ruginienė and Speaker of the Seimas Jozas Olekas - were transferred to the shelters.

What the locals say. One of the residents of Vilnius, Konstantin, told Novaya-Europa that at first the warnings concerned other parts of the country, and a few minutes later a notification from the Ministry of Defense came to his phone. After that, he and the child went down to the underground parking lot.

“I have a two-year-old child, and I don’t want to risk his life even minimally, and I myself take these alerts seriously - it’s better to spend time than to regret it for the rest of my life,” he explained.

Konstantin noted that in the first minutes there were only a few people in the shelter, the rest began to descend later. About 15 minutes after the alarm was announced, authorities said residents could leave their shelters.

Context. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Russian and Ukrainian drones have periodically flown into the territory of the Baltic countries. Thus, on the evening of May 17, fragments of a Ukrainian drone were found in the Utena region.