Vilnius mayor highlights challenges of opening bomb shelters in apartment basements

Opening bomb shelters quickly during emergencies remains a major challenge in Vilnius, particularly due to access issues in apartment building basements and private storage areas, Mayor Valdas Benkunskas said Wednesday, LRT reports.

The capital’s administration is analysing technical solutions to reduce activation time from the current 12-hour state requirement to just minutes, Benkunskas told BNS. However, he warned that keeping shelters—70% of which are located in residential basements or storage units—unlocked around the clock would create new security risks.

“These are either storage rooms or basements containing property, and they can’t remain open all the time due to theft and vandalism risks,” the mayor said. “In that case, we’d face different problems within five minutes—security issues, vandalism, break-ins. There’s no solution here.”

Last week, Vilnius residents were instructed to seek shelter during a drone threat, but some found designated spaces locked. While central authorities advocate keeping shelters permanently accessible, Benkunskas argued this approach would introduce fresh complications.

A newly formed municipal safety commission is now reviewing both the current situation and potential fixes to streamline the process.

In separate remarks, Benkunskas addressed recent data breaches at the Centre of Registers, confirming his own family’s property records were among those accessed in mid-February. He called the incident a “huge scandal” exposing systemic vulnerabilities in state-managed IT systems and urged security agencies to clarify how sensitive personal data—including non-public figures’ real estate details—had been compromised.

“The bigger concern is how state-collected data is stored in general,” he said. “It’s unclear who now has access to these records and for what purpose.”

On other topics, Benkunskas dismissed criticism that language requirements for foreigners were tied to upcoming municipal elections and rejected calls from parts of the Jewish community to demolish the Sports Palace, built on the site of a former Jewish cemetery.