Nato jets shoot down drone that flew into Lithuanian airspace

Nato fighter pilots have shot down a drone that entered Lithuania's airspace overnight, the Lithuanian president said.

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda wrote in a statement on X: "A drone that just entered Lithuanian airspace was destroyed by NATO fighter jets."

It is thought to be the first time that a Nato jet has shot down a drone in Lithuanian airspace.

Shortly after midnight local time (21:00 GMT), alerts were sent to phones in the region, warning of a potential drone incursion and telling residents to "find a safe place" and "wait for the all clear".

The alerts, issued 26 minutes apart, sent to mobile phones in the Vilnius region in the early hours of Tuesday morning

Lithuania's armed forces and Italian pilots serving in the Nato Air Defence Mission "showed a swift and responsible response" to the drone incursion, Lithuania's Ministry of Defence said.

"We stand united, around the clock, in defence of every inch of Nato territory."

The drone debris, scattered widely, will be collected and examined to try to determine who it belonged to, whether it was armed - and whether it was launched at Lithuania deliberately or perhaps strayed off course.

Drone sightings were reported in Lithuania on Sunday. The crisis management centre later said an object had "likely" entered from Belarus and travelled across the country's territory before entering the airspace of Russia. The 13 September incident did not trigger air threat alerts.

Poland also announced there had been "aviation operations" in its airspace on Monday night "due to the activity of Russian Federation's jet-powered unmanned aerial vehicles conducting strikes on Ukrainian territory".

Residents in Lithuania's capital were forced to take shelter across Vilnius in May after a drone alert was triggered, briefly grounding flights and rail travel.

Ukraine has blamed the stray drones on Russian electronic warfare, technology designed to change the flight paths of Ukrainian drones.