Ukraine apologises, blames Russian jamming for drone crash in Lithuania

A drone crash over Lithuania

On the morning of Sunday, 18 October 2026, an unidentified object entered Lithuanian airspace and triggered a red air alarm across the centre and north of the country. Residents were told to take shelter for about an hour, and NATO fighter jets took off, among them two Italian Eurofighters operating under NATO command, a NATO official said. The object disappeared from radar, and possible wreckage was later found near the village of Juodzionys. Debris struck a civilian car and damaged its door, and nobody was hurt.

Lithuania's defence minister, Robertas Kaunas, said the object was probably a drone that had entered through Poland, and he proposed a joint investigation with his Polish counterpart. Because of bad weather, the NATO jets could not identify the object visually, the minister said. Kaunas airport was closed for a time, with one report putting the closure at more than an hour. The Latvian armed forces said the jets had not shot down the possible drone and that the unidentified object may have destroyed itself.

Ukraine apologises and blames Russian jamming

Ukraine's foreign ministry spokesperson, Heorhii Tykhyi, apologised on X for the incident and said it may have been caused by Russian electronic warfare that diverted drones during an operation against legitimate military targets in Russia. Kyiv expressed regret for the disruption, risks and concern the incident caused, said it was ready to share all relevant information with Lithuanian partners, and thanked Lithuania, a NATO ally, for supporting Ukraine against Russian aggression. The apology came a few hours after the incident became known. Kyiv had earlier said Ukrainian drones were pushed off course by Russian jamming devices, and drones had repeatedly entered NATO airspace in the Baltic region in the months before this incident. Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda wrote on social media that the war was spreading to NATO's and the EU's eastern flank, and that an object that appeared to be a drone had exploded in the north of the country, endangering civilians. Experts were working at the site.

Alarms in Poland, Latvia and the region

Poland's defence ministry said there was no confirmation of such a flight on Polish radars, while the Polish army said it was checking a possible violation of its own airspace by an unidentified object. The Polish air force said it had taken preventive measures in response to Russian missile attacks on Ukraine. In Latvia, the armed forces said the unidentified object had been detected between 6:00 and 8:00 local time, and sent SMS alerts to three districts because of a high probability that it would enter Latvian airspace. Separately, Romania's defence minister, Radu Miruta, said the Romanian air force had shot down two drones over the Black Sea on Saturday, 17 October.

What remains unclear

The origin of the object has not been confirmed, and the investigation into the debris and the flight path is still under way. Whether the drone entered from Poland, as Lithuania's defence minister suggested, remains open, since Polish authorities said they had no confirmation of such a flight on their radars. NATO said it remained in close contact with Lithuanian authorities and was ready to respond to any potential threat around the clock. Ukraine said it would work with Lithuania to clarify the circumstances of the incident.