An unmanned aerial vehicle entered Lithuanian airspace from Poland, according to the Baltic nation\u2019s Defense Ministry<\/p>\n
An explosive-laden Ukrainian attack drone crashed in Lithuania on Sunday, damaging a passenger car, Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevicius confirmed on Monday.
\nThe drone triggered a high-level air alert in several Lithuanian regions before crashing in the northern Pasvalys district, near the Latvian border. Debris from the UAV damaged a passing car, but no one was injured, according to National Crisis Management Center head Vilmantas Vitkauskas.
\nSinkevicus said the response to the incident was different from standard procedures because the drone arrived from a fellow NATO nation. \u201cThe drone entered from the Schengen Area, crossing the border with Poland, so the response was slightly different. Fighter jets were, of course, scrambled and tracked the moving object, but they were unable to see it visually due to adverse weather conditions,\u201d the prime minister said.
\nOn Monday, Sinkevicus confirmed that the UAV had been identified as a Ukrainian strike drone. \u201cThere is no doubt that it was carrying an explosive payload,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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Baltic states enabled Ukrainian drone attacks \u2013 Moscow<\/p>\n
According to Lithuanian Defense Minister Robertas Kaunas, the drone was likely a part of a major Ukrainian attack on the Russian city of St. Petersburg. \u201cSome of the drones were diverted off course by Russia\u2019s electronic warfare systems and ended up in our territory. This particular drone is a consequence of the attack on St. Petersburg,\u201d the minister told the LRT broadcaster. He also identified the drone as a Ukrainian FVP-1 model.
\nThe Ukrainian drone attack on St. Petersburg on Sunday night killed one person and injured five others, according to Governor Aleksandr Beglov. It also damaged more than a dozen apartment buildings and sparked a fire at an oil terminal.
\nMoscow has repeatedly condemned the Ukrainian strikes on Russian civilian and energy infrastructure calling them \u201cterrorist\u201d attacks aimed at compensating for setbacks on the battlefield, where Russian forces have continued to advance.
\nDespite identifying the drone as Ukrainian, Lithuania blamed Russia for the incident. The case would be investigated as part of a Lithuanian probe into \u201cRussia\u2019s aggression against Ukraine,\u201d a police official told the Lithuanian Elta news agency. Kiev said it regretted the drone incident while calling Moscow\u2019s actions \u201cthe root cause of the security threats in our region.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Ukraine in \u2018final manifestations of agony\u2019 \u2013 Kremlin<\/p>\n
Kiev has been ramping up its long-range UAV attacks on energy infrastructure in Russia\u2019s Leningrad Region, which surrounds the country\u2019s second-largest city, St. Petersburg, since spring. The campaign resulted in a number of incidents where explosive-laden drones crashed in nearby NATO member states \u2013 Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia \u2013 while on their way to Russia.
\nIn July, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Galuzin said that Moscow had \u201cverified data indicating that Latvia and other Baltic republics have already provided air corridors for Ukrainian drones that have attacked our country\u2019s civilian infrastructure.\u201d
\nThe Baltic nations and Finland, which have been among the staunchest backers of Kiev in the EU during the Ukraine crisis, had previously denied any involvement in the drone attacks on Russia.
\nRussian Security Council Secretary Sergey Shoigu had previously warned that if it turned out that the Baltic states and Finland \u201cdeliberately provide their airspace\u201d to Ukrainian UAVs, Moscow would have the right to self-defense in response to an \u201carmed attack\u201d under Article 51 of the UN Charter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An unmanned aerial vehicle entered Lithuanian airspace from Poland, according to the Baltic nation\u2019s Defense Ministry An explosive-laden Ukrainian attack drone crashed in Lithuania on Sunday, damaging a passenger car,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t