{"id":982567,"date":"2026-05-24T21:49:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T21:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/982567\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T21:49:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T21:49:14","slug":"von-der-leyen-to-head-to-lithuania-for-drone-crisis-talks-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/982567\/","title":{"rendered":"Von der Leyen to head to Lithuania for drone crisis talks \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Lithuania issued an air alert on Wednesday <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/lithuania-air-alert-stray-drone-nato-eu-russia-tensions\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">after a stray drone was detected close to the country&#8217;s border with Belarus<\/a>, with NATO\u2019s Baltic air-policing mission activated as a result.<\/p>\n<p>The incident came after two Ukrainian drones, intended for Russia, came down over an empty oil storage facility in Latvia earlier this month \u2014 sparking a crisis that has led to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/latvian-prime-minister-quits-after-backlash-over-stray-ukrainian-drone-strikes\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/latvian-prime-minister-quits-after-backlash-over-stray-ukrainian-drone-strikes\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">collapse of the governing coalition<\/a>. A NATO jet <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/romania-estonia-ukraine-drone\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">shot down a drone in Estonian airspace<\/a> last week.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRussia\u2019s public threats against our Baltic States are completely unacceptable,\u201d von der Leyen said in a <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/vonderleyen\/status\/2057053732097998902?s=20\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/x.com\/vonderleyen\/status\/2057053732097998902?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">message posted on social media<\/a> last week. \u201cRussia and Belarus bear direct responsibility for drones endangering the lives and security of people on our Eastern flank. Europe will respond with unity and strength.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The three Baltic countries have warned that Moscow is seeking to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/russia-drone-blame-game-fails-split-ukraine-baltic-allies\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">capitalize on the incidents to drive a wedge between Ukraine and its EU allies<\/a> \u2014 issuing a joint statement in which they rejected &#8220;Russia\u2019s blatant disinformation campaign and its fabricated accusations following the airspace violations, which Russia shamelessly uses to mask its military failures.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The EU in February <a href=\"https:\/\/commission.europa.eu\/news-and-media\/news\/strong-eastern-regions-safe-europe-2026-02-18_en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">launched a plan<\/a> to reinforce its frontline states amid concerns that Russia&#8217;s war in Ukraine and hybrid tactics risk damaging local economies. The European Commission is also working on plans to help countries bolster their air defense capabilities with joint procurement and development schemes.<\/p>\n<p>Jacopo Barigazzi contributed reporting. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lithuania issued an air alert on Wednesday after a stray drone was detected close to the country&#8217;s border&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":982568,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5174],"tags":[2594,18992,44693,767,1111,768,6659,473,13071,2595,2000,299,5187,1113,1114,2597,12337,2661,7061,332,5549,657,1220,335],"class_list":["post-982567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-air-defense","tag-airspace","tag-andrius-kubilius","tag-baltics","tag-belarus","tag-borders","tag-crisis","tag-defense","tag-disinformation","tag-drones","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-latvia","tag-lithuania","tag-military","tag-missions","tag-oil","tag-procurement","tag-russia","tag-safety","tag-ukraine","tag-ursula-von-der-leyen","tag-war-in-ukraine"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116631762890066021","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/982567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=982567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/982567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/982568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=982567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=982567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=982567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}