Ukrainian drone crashes in NATO state
A Ukrainian drone which was part of a swarm targeting Russia has crashed in Lithuania, Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene told reporters after a meeting with national security officials in Vilnius on Tuesday.
The Ukrainian military has intensified its kamikaze UAV strikes on Russia in recent months, after facing multiple battlefield setbacks. Moscow has consistently characterized them as “terrorist attacks” targeting infrastructure, as well as industrial and residential areas.
According to Ruginiene, a Ukrainian drone involved in an attack on Russia’s Baltic Sea port of Primorsk near St. Petersburg was suppressed by electronic warfare and went down in southern Lithuania on Monday.
“We can already say with certainty that it was a drone that went astray,” she said, adding that it “was a Ukrainian drone and was associated with the operation that the Ukrainians were conducting against Russia that night.”
Lithuanian Defense Minister Robertas Kaunas said the munition was not detected by NATO radars because it was “flying at an altitude of less than 300 meters.” Lithuania has ordered radars needed to detect these objects, but they have not yet arrived, he told journalists on Tuesday.
The incident is not the first example of Ukrainian drones and missiles going down in NATO members states during the Ukraine conflict.
Last September, Moscow accused Kiev of deliberately sending drones into the military bloc’s territory as part of a false flag attack, in order to pit NATO directly against Russia.
Polish media later confirmed that the only damage from the incident was caused by a missile fired by one of Poland’s F-16s involved in intercepting the UAVs. Moscow has maintained that it was not striking targets in the area at the time.
