Drone falls in Pasvalys district after red air alert, 18 Oct 2026

NATO fighters were scrambled from Šiauliai at 06:15 local time on October 18, 2026, AirVeto's timeline shows. The first alert went out at 07:00 and the red alert at 07:09, 45 and 54 minutes later, before a drone fell at Juodžionys in Pasvalys district and damaged a moving car.

Defence Minister Robertas Kaunas says the object preliminarily entered Lithuania from Poland. Ukraine's foreign ministry later said Russian electronic warfare may have diverted its drones. Lithuanian officials have not confirmed the drone's type.

The drone fell at Juodžionys and damaged a moving car

Pasvalys police received the report of a falling object near Juodžionys at 07:28, police official Rita Šakenienė told 15min. The drone damaged a car and nobody was hurt. The National Crisis Management Centre (NKVC) put the damage on the rear door, while Šakenienė said the front doors. The driver, travelling from Biržai toward Pasvalys, heard an explosion, the prime minister said.

Vitkauskas said the drone possibly exploded and, if it did, probably carried explosives, in an amount anywhere from small to a full warhead. He declined to say whether the blast came in the air or on landing. At 10:00 he told LRT Radio that only small parts had been found, not the main components, along the roadside and in fields away from homes. He said a radius of about 5 km had been cordoned off and fog ruled out an air search.

Residents heard a loud explosion, and one witness told 15min the windows shook "like lightning". The road toward Biržai was closed and nearby residents were sent a warning about dangerous debris.

The army's radar track ran north from Poland, and Ukraine says Russian jamming may be behind it

The army said its radars picked up a track moving north from Polish territory and that weather hampered identification. Kaunas said he had asked the Polish defence minister to join the investigation. Vitkauskas called a Ukrainian drone the most credible version and said it may have followed the Polish-Belarusian border, because no country would risk shooting down a simple drone beside a neighbour's frontier.

Ukraine's foreign ministry spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi wrote on X that the incident "may have resulted from Russian electronic warfare diverting drones during an operation against legitimate military targets in Russia". He apologised for the disruption, 15min reported, quoting Reuters. Lithuanian officials have not confirmed that the object was a Ukrainian drone.

Sinkevičius has called the National Security Commission for Monday, October 19, to establish where the drone came from and where radars first picked it up. He said a sabotage version must also be assessed. President Gitanas Nausėda said Russia's war on Ukraine "is spilling over onto the Eastern flank of NATO and the EU", LRT English reported.

The first alert came 45 minutes after the fighters were scrambled

The army's operation began at about 06:00, Kaunas said, and NATO fighters took off from Šiauliai at 06:15. The alerts followed, as logged by the ELTA news agency:

Local time	Event
06:15	NATO fighters scrambled from Šiauliai
07:00	Yellow alert, Kaunas County
07:05	Yellow alert, Šiauliai and Panevėžys counties
07:09	Red alert, Šiauliai and Panevėžys counties
07:28	Police report of an object falling near Juodžionys
07:51	White signal, Kaunas and Šiauliai counties
08:11	White signal, Panevėžys County

NKVC head Vilmantas Vitkauskas said the army first assessed the object's direction and speed, and issued the yellow alert at 07:03 by his count. Six minutes later fighters identified it as possibly a drone, and the red alert followed. Officials should not alarm the public before a threat is real, he added. The minister said no one had visual contact with the object because of the weather.

Alytus and Marijampolė counties were never warned

Residents of Alytus and Marijampolė counties received no alert, although Kaunas said the drone entered from Poland. He called it "strange and unacceptable" and asked the army for a detailed chronology. The fire and rescue department (PAGD) said the army decides where and when to warn, and told it to alert Kaunas County first, then Šiauliai, then Panevėžys. Sinkevičius said the warning system worked "not fully", 15min reported.

The Armed Forces said weather prevented confirming whether the target was dangerous

The post said NATO fighters were in the air and the target was tracked on their radars. "Due to weather conditions," it said, it could not be confirmed whether the target was dangerous or harmless ("pavojingas/nepavojingas"). Residents of the two counties were told to stay in shelter until the alert was cancelled.

Kaunas said at 07:45 that the fighters were following the object over Biržai district. Vitkauskas said the radars lost it around Pasvalys district.

The alert ended across Lithuania, and soldiers went to inspect where the signal vanished

The Armed Forces cancelled the alert across Lithuania (white) and said residents could resume normal activity. The possible target was no longer on radar, and soldiers were on their way to the place in Biržai district where the signal disappeared. Juodžionys lies 14.6 km from Biržai town by AirVeto's measurement.

Latvia's armed forces sent an orange warning to Bauska, Aizkraukle and Ogre municipalities just after 07:40, cancelled after about half an hour. Ogre mayor Andris Krauja told LETA that nothing entered Latvian airspace and the warning was based on the object's flight path, 15min reported.

The wind over Pasvalys district blew from the north-northeast at 1,000 m and 2,000 m

AirVeto's wind model gives the center-point wind over Juodžionys at 07:00 local time on October 18.

Altitude	Wind from	Speed
1,000 m	NNE	34 km/h
2,000 m	NNE	25 km/h
3,000 m	NW	19 km/h

Directions are where the wind blew from. A balloon at 1,000 or 2,000 m would have travelled south-southwest. The army's radar track ran north, and the drone's altitude has not been reported.

It follows the October 3 Vilnius alert and an earlier crashed drone near Pasvalys

The October 3 Vilnius alert was yellow, covered Vilnius County and Ukmergė, and ended with the Air Force finding no suspicious objects. A crashed drone was found near Pasvalys on September 16, 30 km from Juodžionys, but it was a smuggling drone that had lain in a forest for months. Lithuania's wider drone and balloon record is on the Lithuania drone incidents page.

This reconstruction is based on reporting by 15min, LRT, ELTA and BNS, the Lithuanian Armed Forces' cell-broadcast and Instagram posts, and AirVeto's wind-model data for the event window. The method is on the methodology page.

Last updated October 18, 2026. AirVeto updates this page as Lithuanian authorities report on the investigation.