President bundled into bunker as drone shuts down Lithuania’s capital

 The Lithuanian president was forced to hide in an underground bunker on Wednesday morning after Nato jets were scrambled to intercept an attack drone flying towards Vilnius.

In the first evacuation orders in a European capital since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Gitanas Nauseda rushed to a shelter alongside Lithuania’s parliament.

Thousands of Lithuanians hid in underground car parks after air raid sirens sounded at 9.40am local time (7.40am BST) following a breach of airspace near Belarus.

Shortly afterwards, Inga Ruginiene, the Lithuanian prime minister, warned that “war is closer than ever” as Russia appeared to be testing Nato’s resolve.

The origin of the drone, which disappeared from Lithuanian airspace, is unclear, but earlier this week Latvia accused Russia of deliberately diverting Ukrainian drones into Baltic airspace.

Riga made the claims a week after the Latvian prime minister resigned over the government’s handling of Russian incursions.

On Tuesday, Russia warned that it could attack Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia after claiming that the Baltic states had planned to allow Ukraine to launch attacks from their territory.

Vasily Nebenzya, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, said: “Membership in Nato will not protect you from retaliation.”

Sanita Pavluta-Deslandes, Latvia’s envoy to the UN Security Council, rejected Moscow’s claim as “pure fiction” intended to destabilise Nato.

On the same day, a Nato F-16 fighter jet flew over Estonia to shoot down a drone that Tallinn suspected of being a Ukrainian projectile redirected by Moscow’s forces.

Ukraine apologised to “Estonia and all our Baltic friends for such unintended incidents” and accused Russia of redirecting its drones over Nato airspace deliberately.

On Wednesday, Mark Rutte, Nato’s secretary-general, praised the alliance’s “calm and decisive response” to recent drone incursions, saying: “This is exactly what we planned and prepared for.”

Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said: “Russia 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. A threat against one member state is a threat against our entire union.”

Nato’s north-eastern flank is growing increasingly nervous about Washington’s commitment to the alliance.

Last week, the Pentagon cancelled a deployment of 4,000 US troops to Poland on a temporary rotation.

The cancellation came two weeks after Washington said it would remove 5,000 troops from Germany following a spat between Donald Trump and Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, over the Iran war.

Margus Tsahkna, the Estonian foreign minister, called for more clarity from the US, telling the Financial Times: “We need to know in a more coordinated way what the plans are.”

Several European countries are set to demand a clearer timeline for US troop withdrawal from Marco Rubio at a Nato foreign ministers’ meeting in Helsingborg, Sweden, on Thursday.

According to a recent wargame scenario by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the Baltics would be the first to fall if Russia invaded Nato.

It warned that a Russian attack on the Baltics would be “militarily simpler” than Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying: “The distances are shorter, the military objectives more limited, and Russia’s opponents – weaker.”