Lithuania launches military exercises across 12 municipalities as Russia keeps probing NATO’s eastern border

Lithuanian troops began military exercises across 12 municipalities in the southern half of the country on 14 September, training to respond to different types of military threats, LRT reported. The exercises will run through 18 September.

NATO's eastern flank has faced growing security pressure from Russia's war against Ukraine. Lithuania borders Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast to the southwest and Belarus to the east, while its territory forms part of the land route connecting the Baltic states with Poland and the rest of NATO.

The exercises involve multiple types of drones, boats, weapons, and wheeled military and civilian transport vehicles, with troops moving on foot and by vehicle during the day and at night. No imitation ammunition or pyrotechnics will be used, the army said.

Recent airspace incidents

Vilnius International Airport was closed on 13 September for 38 minutes after radar detected what was initially feared to be a drone. An Italian air force detachment based at Šiauliai as part of NATO's Baltic Air Defense mission scrambled a fighter jet, which identified the contact as a flock of birds.

Vilmantas Vitkauskas, head of Lithuania's National Crisis Management Center, told LRT radio that a large concentration of birds moving in one direction can register on radar as a drone-like object.

Separately, Poland said on 14 September that its military had found a suspected Russian military drone near its Baltic Sea coast. Polish Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz said a preliminary inspection indicated it was a Russian military drone.

Operational Command spokesman Jacek Goryszewski told TVN24 it was most probably a Russian Gerbera, a cheap long-range drone built from plywood and foam that is often used as a decoy but can carry explosives, and said it had drifted to shore under military observation, with no violation of Polish airspace recorded since late July.

Multinational drills near Belarus

Another multinational exercise, Strong Griffin 2026, is also underway in Lithuania's Švenčionys district near the Belarusian border. Running from 2 to 20 September, it involves about 2,500 troops and 500 pieces of equipment from Lithuania, the United States, Poland, the Netherlands, France, and Portugal, plus partner countries Ukraine and Moldova, according to LRT. Drone work is integrated across it, from reconnaissance to long-range strikes and countering enemy drones.

European intelligence services expect the danger to grow rather than fade. Dutch military intelligence assesses that Russia could mount a regional conflict against NATO within a year of the fighting in Ukraine ending, and reports that preparations for sabotage across Europe have been rising again since mid-2025.