NATO fighter jets fail to shoot down drone over Lithuania

NATO fighter jets twice tried and failed to shoot down a drone over northern Lithuania overnight, Euronews reported. Unidentified aerial objects triggered air-raid warnings across the Baltic states and caused precautionary restrictions in Finland. Lithuania's president said that four drones and dozens of suspected meteorological balloon sightings were detected moving from Belarus towards the external border of NATO. [1]

Three unmanned aircraft were first detected operating inside Belarusian airspace and moving north towards Latvia, Euronews reported. The armed forces of Latvia subsequently reported that two additional aerial targets entered Latvian airspace from Belarus before later departing. A fourth drone crossed from Belarus into Lithuania. [1]

The incident comes after previous incursions along the eastern flank of the alliance. As FTMQ News reported earlier, NATO fighter jets were scrambled in October after a suspected drone entered Lithuanian airspace and was believed to have detonated on its own near the Latvian border. Romanian F-16 fighter jets also shot down two drones over the Black Sea in October after the aircraft illegally entered national airspace. [5][6]