A military drone that crashed on a frozen lake in Lithuania came from Ukraine and was intended to attack Russian oil assets before going astray, Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene said on Tuesday.
The drone crashed near the border with Belarus a day earlier. Lithuania’s military initially reported that a suspected military drone had entered its airspace and crashed; nobody was injured.
The government said the drone was part of a Ukrainian attack on the Primorsk oil loading terminal, one of two major export facilities on Russia’s Baltic Sea coast that were hit around the same time. Defense Minister Robertas Kaunas said initial findings indicate it belonged to a swarm deployed against the Primorsk port and that it was highly likely the drone had been sent off course by Russian jamming.
Ruginiene said Moscow still bore some responsibility. “This is not a local incident, this is part of a wider security picture,” she said, adding that Russian aggression against Ukraine creates additional risks for the whole region. Briefing reporters after a meeting of the National Security Commission, she said it could be stated “with certainty” that the flying object was “a stray drone.”
The incident follows Lithuania’s request last year to NATO for more air defenses after military drones from Belarus — an ally of Russia — landed on Lithuanian territory twice in July 2025. Lithuanian intelligence earlier this month said it believed both of those drones had entered the country by mistake.
NATO member Lithuania, which was invaded, occupied and incorporated into the Soviet Union during the Second World War and remained under Soviet control through the Cold War, has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine amid Russia’s invasion.
Ruginiene said the incident could ultimately be traced back to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. (FILE: January 29, 2026) Image: Ruffer/Caro/picture alliance
Edited by: Natalie Muller