Lithuania’s Defense Minister Laurynas Kasčiūnas called for changes to NATO’s air policing mission in the Baltic states following a recent incident where a Russian military drone crashed in Latvia.
The call for changes comes after Latvia’s military leadership confirmed on 9 September that a drone that entered from Belarus and crashed on Latvian territory was a Shahed with a combat payload.
Kasčiūnas argued that the NATO mission “should not only patrol but also, if time permits, shorten the decision-making chain at the NATO level so that they can immediately take off and destroy drones if necessary,” according to the Lithuanian broadcaster.
The minister stressed the need for rapid information sharing with NATO headquarters when drones threaten to violate airspace.
“NATO headquarters assesses the situation, whether there is sufficient evidence that it is indeed a hostile drone and not some other lost aircraft, and then a quick decision is made to deploy air police aircraft,” Kasčiūnas explained the current process.
Kasčiūnas emphasized, “This is a certain algorithm, and it needs to be accelerated.”
When asked about Lithuania’s potential response to a Russian drone violating its airspace, the minister insisted it should be a collective NATO decision.
A Russian unmanned aerial vehicle crashed in Latvia’s Rezekne region on 7 September, the Latvian Ministry of Defense has confirmed two days later. In response to the incident, Latvia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the Russian chargé d’affaires.
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