Lithuania prepares evacuation plans as PM warns of Russian threats
Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevičius says Lithuania has contingency plans for several scenarios, while stressing that no evacuation is under way and no attack has been reported.
Lithuania has prepared contingency plans that include evacuating elderly people from cities, Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevičius told the BBC, as the NATO member responds to what he described as persistent security threats from Russia.
Sinkevičius said Lithuanians felt “constantly threatened”, citing reported drone incursions into the country’s airspace. He said some of the government’s scenarios were not being discussed publicly.
The prime minister said Lithuania would fight back and “engage” if attacked, but the interview did not indicate that an attack was imminent. Nor did it say that an evacuation was under way.
The comments came about a week after NATO fighter pilots reportedly shot down a drone that entered Lithuanian airspace. Its origin has not been confirmed, although Lithuania’s defence minister said it came from the direction of Belarus, a Russian ally.
Lithuania shares a land border with Russia’s Kaliningrad region and joined NATO in 2004. The alliance’s Article 5 treats an armed attack on one member as an attack on all members.
Drone incursions and airspace alerts have also been reported elsewhere in the Baltic region since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The available information does not establish that Russia caused the reported incursions.
