A NATO fighter jet has shot down an unidentified drone over Lithuania after it apparently entered the country from Belarus shortly after midnight on September 15.
Lithuania’s national crisis-management centre said the drone was destroyed near Pratkunai in southern Lithuania, close to Kaunas. An alert had also been issued for Vilnius and surrounding areas.
Authorities have not established who owned or launched the drone.
Previous incidents in the Baltic region have involved Ukrainian drones straying across borders, with Kyiv blaming Russian electronic warfare for disrupting their navigation. There is currently no evidence establishing that explanation in this case.
The incident adds to the growing risk of Ukraine’s drone war spilling into NATO airspace.
Alliance pilots confronting an unidentified aircraft may have only minutes to determine whether it is lost, conducting reconnaissance or attacking.
NATO cannot leave unidentified drones free to cross its borders.
But every interception also carries the possibility that an accident is mistaken for an attack.
The danger on NATO’s eastern frontier is increasingly not just deliberate escalation.
It is miscalculation.
Source
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