Lithuania prepares evacuation plans amid Russia threats and drone incursions
Lithuania's prime minister has said the country has evacuation plans in place as it faces what he described as persistent threats from Russia. Mindaugas SinkeviÄius said Lithuanians feel constantly threatened and that the country would not surrender if attacked. He also said Lithuania would fight back and engage in the event of an assault.
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Speaking in an interview, SinkeviÄius said the plans cover a variety of scenarios, including moving elderly people out of cities smoothly and avoiding traffic jams. He said some of the preparations are not being discussed publicly in detail. The prime minister linked the security concern to recent drone incursions into Lithuanian airspace.
The comments come a week after Nato fighter pilots shot down a drone that entered Lithuanian airspace. Lithuanian defence minister Robertas Kaunas said the drone came from the direction of Belarus, which borders Lithuania and is a close ally of Russia. The origin of the drone has not been confirmed, but the incident has added to concern in a country that shares a land border with the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.
The episode underlines the pressure on Nato's eastern flank as military drone incidents become more common across Europe during Russia's full-scale war in Ukraine. Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia joined Nato in 2004, and all three have faced repeated airspace-related security concerns in recent months. In Lithuania's capital, Vilnius, residents were forced to take shelter in May after a drone alert briefly disrupted flights and rail travel.
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The prime minister also said the United Kingdom needed a shift in mindset on defence, while stressing that Lithuania is closer to the border and closer to the threat. Nato has scrambled jets multiple times this year to deal with stray drones that crossed into Estonia and Latvia, and Ukraine has blamed some of those incidents on Russian electronic warfare. The latest remarks suggest Lithuanian officials are treating the risk as both immediate and practical, with evacuation planning now part of the public discussion.
What remains unclear is the exact scale of the evacuation planning and which scenarios are being prepared for. It is also not confirmed who launched the drone that was shot down, or whether the recent incursions are directly linked to Russia or Belarus. For now, Lithuanian officials are signalling that they expect the security pressure to continue and are preparing for further airspace violations or worse.
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