A Nato jet scrambled to Lithuania Airport over a possible drone sighting was stood down – after the potential threat was confirmed to be a flock of birds.
The sighting on Saturday prompted the closure of Vilnius airport and prompted at least one Nato fighter jet to be summoned to respond.
The air alert was lifted and the airport reopened within 38 minutes, after the jet spotted the birds, Lithuania’s National Crisis Management Centre said.
“On initial radar readings, marks left by birds and drones can be similar,” it added in a statement.
The jet was summoned from Siauliai in northern Lithuania, where the Italian air force is based as part of the Nato Baltic Air Defence mission.
Military drones straying into the airspace of Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have stoked concerns that the war in Ukraine is spilling over into Nato’s northern borders with Russia.
Europe and Nato have been raising the alarm over growing Russian provocations over the past year.
A Nato F-18 fighter jet operating on an air policing mission shot down a drone that unlawfully entered Romanian airspace, in August.
The aircraft was initially detected by radar as it crossed into Romanian territory from neighbouring Moldova, 24 km north of the south-eastern city of Galati. Although Romania’s defence ministry did not specify the drone’s origin, Nato representatives suggested a Russian link.
Romania, a Nato member with a 614 km (381 miles) land border with Ukraine, has recorded numerous airspace incursions by Russian drones over the past four years, alongside floating sea mines threatening key Black Sea shipping and energy routes.
Two days earlier, four Nato fighter jets were scrambled to shoot down a drone in Latvian airspace. Latvian authorities said that a “foreign unmanned aerial vehicle” had “flown into Latvia as a result of Russian electromagnetic warfare”.
Nato was also forced to send jets in response to Russian violations of Lithuania’s airspace in October last year.
Two Russian military aircraft, an Su-30 fighter jet and an II-78 refuelling tanker, flew over the Nato member state on for approximately 18 seconds, prompting a formal reaction from the alliance. They were possibly on a refuelling training mission, the military said.
“I strongly condemn the violation of Lithuanian airspace by the fighter jet and transport plane of the Russian Federation from a Kaliningrad region site,” Lithuanian president Gitanas Nauseda said in a statement at the time.
Russia’s defence ministry denied the incident and said none of its Su-30 jets training in the Kaliningrad region violated the territory of any country.
