Before the incident in Lithuania, authorities in the region had already resorted to safety measures after reports of possible drones. In a previous case, Vilnius Airport was temporarily closed, and fighter jets from the NATO air-policing mission took off for checks after a possible drone was reported to be heading toward Lithuania from Belarus.
Similar alerts were also reported in other Baltic states. Latvia announced a yellow-level air alert in areas along the border with Lithuania, citing a possible threat, and the alert was subsequently canceled. At the same time, there were also cases in which NATO aircraft shot down drones that had entered Latvian airspace, without the authorities immediately providing details about their origin.
Meanwhile, incidents were also reported in the NATO eastern flank region that led to warnings for the public, including through RO-Alert messages in Romania, after aerial targets were detected near the border with Ukraine. In these situations, the authorities stated that no intrusions into national airspace had been reported, while checks remained at the center of the response measures.
